First thing he says..."if you're going to fall 35,000 feet from a plane without a parachute and live, it's probably best to ride a piece of debris on the way down." See, I KNEW there was a catch to it. With my luck, the debris I grab will the the in-flight magazine. "Granted," he says, "the odds of surviving a six-mile plummet are extraordinarily slim, but at this point you've got nothing to loose by understanding your situation."
Believe it or not, there are at least 31 confirmed survival stories. Alan Magee was blasted from his B-17 on a 1943 mission over France and lived. He 'free-fell' 20,000 feet and crashed into a train station. He was then taken as a prisoner-of-war by German troops who probably said, "Ach du lieber" (I have no idea what that means) because they couldn't believe he was still alive.
A skydiving "Brit" fell 10,000 feet after his parachute failed to open. He landed on the roof of an aircraft hangar which 'flexed' to break his fall.
Don't think I haven't thought about it though. If it were me, I'd keep my legs loose so I could flex just as I hit the ground, then pop-up, spread my arms high and yell "Ta-dah" to the amazement of all those watching. I've got a back-up plan for plunging elevators too.
Actually, it isn't the height that kills you, people who read Popular Mechanics say... it's the sudden stop.
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