On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 12:47:14 -0500, Jeepers
wrote:

In article ,
(Steven Shelikoff) wrote:

I'd think that 100% of the people who fall out of an airplane without a
parachute will die.

During a bombing raid over Germany on 23rd March, 1944, Flight Sergeant
Nicholas Alkemade, R.A.F., jumped from his Lancaster at 18,000 feet, to
escape the holocaust of the blazing bomber, leaving behind his useless
parachute, that had been torn to shreds by shrapnel. His headlong fall
was broken by a fir tree and he finally landed in an 18 inch snow-drift,
without a single fracture. Naturally, the Luftwaffe authorities were
highly suspicious of his story of falling from such a height without a
parachute, but on investigation they found his shredded and unused
Œchute in the crashed remains of the aircraft.

ok, make that 99.9%

Steve