As if skydiving wasn’t terrifying enough…
A pair of skydivers free-falling at 120 mph narrowly missed being killed by two F-15 fighter jets buzzing past at roughly 350 mph, according to Great Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority.
The parachutists “were carrying out a jump over Chatteris airfield when they saw 2 F-15 aircraft travelling north to south directly over the airfield and beneath the parachutists in freefall,” according to the report. The incident reportedly happened in April, but is only now being reported.
One of the pilots involved claimed to have been unaware that skydivers were operating in above the airfield on the day of the near collision. Busy radio traffic throughout the day is blamed for a lack of communication between skydiving clubs and military officials when the incident occurred. The F-15s belong to the US Air Force and fly out of the RAF Lakenheath base in Suffolk, according to the BBC.
It’s unclear how close the skydivers got to the jets, but undisclosed images from a GoPro camera being worn by one of the parachutists reportedly shows the top of an F-15 in plain sight.
The F-15 reaches a top speed of 1,875 mph, according to Boeing, which makes the nearly 43-foot wide fighter jet.
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