A stuntman made history when he performed the most expensive aerial stunt ever, risking his life as he ziplined between two planes for 1993 film Cliffhanger.
On the set of the Sylvester Stallone action thriller, British stunt coordinator Simon Crane was tasked with one of the most dangerous aerial stunts ever carried out.
In the film, one of the villains had to travel from a DC-9 plane to a smaller Gulfstream JetStar below, gliding along a zipwire as the two aircraft continued to whizz through the sky at 150mph.
The stunt proved so ambitious, that not only could it have killed Crane, it also became cinema’s ‘most expensive stunt performed in the air’, according to Guinness World Records.
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They said: “Simon Crane (UK) performed one of the most dangerous ever aerial stunts when he moved between two jets at an altitude of 4,572 m (15,000 ft) for Cliffhanger (USA, 1993).
"The stunt, performed only once because it was so risky, cost a record $1 million (£568,000).”
Adjusted for inflation, that’s an estimated cost today of $1,923,515.
To complete the sequence, which took months of rehearsal, Crane donned a prosthetic mask and a pair of concealed emergency parachutes just in case anything went wrong – which it did.
Speaking about the stunt in AMC show Hollywood’s Greatest Stunts, he explained: “If something went wrong, it was then very, very dangerous.
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"Other things you could do are still dangerous, but it’s not curtains. You know, yes, you get hurt, but with Cliffhanger if something went wrong I could have easily been killed.”
There were basically several factors that added to the danger, including the fact that both planes had to travel at exactly 150mph. Any slower, and the larger DC-9 aircraft would stall; any faster, and the force of the wind would likely pull Crane’s limbs from his torso.
The narrator of the documentary also explains: “At this altitude, oxygen is scarce, making every breath an effort.
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“Because of the wind chill factor, the temperature is a muscle-numbing 90 degrees below zero. Crane’s face has to be covered in a specially-designed prosthetic mask to combat the extreme cold. In case anything should go wrong, he’s carrying two contained parachutes.”
The plan was for the crew at the door of the Jet Star to grab hold of the weighted rope and pull him inside the plane, but as Crane reached the door, a pocket of powerful turbulence blasted him off course.
He recalled: “I actually bounced into the door, and bounced out again, and that’s when I went above and slid along the roof.
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“I was probably within about six feet of the engines of the Jet Star, which was very, very dangerous.”
After several attempts, the crew were still unable to reach the rope to pull Crane inside to safety, and he had to go for plan B.
Crane continued: “I got thrown to the side, and as soon as I was clear of the plane I could release myself in a parachute down.”
Despite the stunt’s unplanned finish, it resulted in one of the film’s most memorable and spectacular scenes – having been finished off with some nifty editing.
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Even so, Crane would have been prepared to do it all over again to get it perfect.
He said: “I would definitely do that stunt again in that we know what went wrong on the actual shoot."
Thank goodness for the modern technologies of CGI, eh?
Featured Image Credit: TriStar PicturesTopics: TV and Film