34. Survived a Fall From 22,000 Feet? Here, Hold My Vodka…
British airman Nicholas Alkemade survived a fall without a parachute from 18,000 feet, and American airman Alan Magee survived one from 22,000. Soviet airman Ivan Mikhailovich Chisov (1916 – 1986) topped both records by surviving a fall without a parachute from 23,000 feet.
It happened in January of 1942, while Lieutenant Colonel Chisov was serving as a navigator in an Ilyushin Il-4 bomber that was jumped by German fighters. The bomber was wrecked and spun out of control, so Chisov exited at a height of 23,000 feet. He had a parachute, but fearing that the nearby German fighters would shoot him, he decided to refrain from opening it until he got close to the ground. However, lack of oxygen in the thin air so high up caused him to black out. Unconscious, he continued all the way down without deploying his parachute.
