Falling at speeds of up to 220 mph, nearly 140 skydivers shattered
the vertical skydiving world record as they flew heads down in a massive
snowflake formation in northern Illinois.

Three judges representing the Federation Aeronautique Internationale,
the international air sports agency, certified that 138 skydivers
created the formation Friday evening over Ottawa, about 80 miles
southwest of Chicago. It took 15 attempts over three days for the team
to break the previous record of 108 skydivers, which was set in 2009.

"I feel amazing," Rook Nelson, an organiser and the owner of Skydive
Chicago where the record was broken, said shortly after he made the
jump. "There was a lot of emotion and a lot of days where we should have
got it. But we dug down deep and stuck at it."

Following months of planning, tryouts and camps to decide who could
take part in the dangerous challenge, the record breakers squeezed into
six aircraft and launched themselves into the air at 18,500 feet. Flying
at such a high altitude presents a risk of altitude sickness, so the
skydivers and pilots used oxygen tanks aboard the planes.

Four camera operators shooting video and stills jumped with the 138
participants to record their achievement for the FAI judges. Those
images are key, said co-organiser Mike Swanson, a professional skydiver
who base jumped from Willis Tower and its fellow Chicago skyscraper
Trump Tower for the movie Transformers 3.

If no one records the 150-foot-wide formation showing all the jumpers
in their pre-assigned slots, "then it wasn't really done". Swanson
said.

The challenge for the record began Wednesday, midway through a 10-day
skydiving festival. After each attempt, the organisers reviewed the
videos and decided who should stay and who should be swapped out for one
of the dozens of hopefuls who didn't make the initial cut.

"It's a hard job coming in from the bench," said Erica Tadokoro, from
Brisbane, Australia. "You have to be positive because it's a team
effort."

Tadokoro, 43, was one of just 13 women selected in the first string.
She was cut after the 14th unsuccessful attempt - one shy of the record
jump.

Nelson explained that vertical flying is "basically doing a
headstand" in the air. The lack of wind resistance speeds the skydivers'
fall rate to an average of 170 mph to 180 mph. Ahead of the record
attempt, he said some of those involved would need to reach much higher
speeds. And that increased the risks.

If they're not paying attention when diving into the formation at
upwards of 220 mph, "it's going to be like someone running a red light
and you taking them out," Nelson said.

Each skydiver knew exactly when to exit the aircraft, whom to follow
and where in the formation they should be. At 7,000 feet the skydivers
began to peel away on a last-in, first-out basis, and each wave deployed
their parachutes at altitudes specified according to their positions in
the formation.

"We don't want everyone to open their parachutes at the same altitude
because then everybody lands at the same time. We stack the sky
vertically" to avoid collisions, Nelson said.

Skydivers travelled from all over the world to take part in the
record attempt, including from France, Spain, Norway, Sweden,
Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Australia and the UK. One,
40-year-old Ahmed Sferi from Reunion, said he travelled for two days
from his tiny Indian Ocean island home to reach Chicago so he could take
part.