A recently released video out of South Africa details a terrifying situation in which skydivers exit a plane just before the aircraft stalls and floats uncontrollably next to them. Footage shows the plane spinning out of control as the skydivers appear dangerously close.
“This all happened inside of just a few seconds. Those on the outside of the door and immediately inside of the door followed. With nine of us initially in the sky, there were still five skydivers inside of the aircraft,” wrote videographer Bernard Janse van Rensburg in a post about the incident.
The plane, known as a Beechcraft King Air, was reportedly flying at 16,000 feet when the stall occurred after the skydivers exited. Another diver exited the plane during the freefall. Stalls apparently happen often due to a number of reasons including slow flight. But generally, stalls occur when air flowing over the wings is disrupted somehow, which creates a loss of lift. Most of the time, pilots can recover control without incident by lowering the plane’s nose and adding power, easier said than done in situations like this when the pilot has to stay calm.
The pilot in this incident was able to recover control of the plane and land without any injuries. “After I was satisfied that the aircraft had recovered (it is a fascinating and unusual thing to see your jump aircraft below you in freefall), I searched the sky for my team and found them building the pre-planned formations in a safe and normal manner,” the videographer said.
In June, another stall incident occurred in California and was caught on video. You can see that below.
