The Daredevils get close to Jesus

Two wing-suit pilots have taken the term "getting closer to God" to an extreme new level.

After leaping out of a hovering helicopter, extreme sports enthusiasts Luigi Cani and Jeb Corliss pulled off an astonishing stunt that might have left onlookers on Rio de Janeiro's towering Christ the Redeemer statue believing they had seen some sort of religious apparition.

Cani and Corliss hurtled at speeds of about 150kmh towards the famous 38-metre high monument.

Footage of their stunt, which was sponsored by a sports beverage company, shows one of the daredevils shooting well in front of the statue before safely deploying his parachute.
Amazingly, the second jumper can be seen flying at break-neck speed beneath the right arm of the statue, missing it by just a few metres.

Cani, a world champion canopy pilot from Brazil, and Corliss, an experienced US BASE-jumper, who is reportedly being sued for attempting to jump from the Empire State Building, eventually landed safely in Rio.

"This was the most exhilarating flight I've ever experienced," Cani said.

"It was almost miraculous ... I truly felt a greater power was watching over me.

"I am hoping that the imagery captured during this flight will convey the sense of freedom, emotion and awareness of everything around you, especially when you only have control over certain elements in life."

Australian BASE-jumper and wing-suit adventurer Dr Glenn Singleman told smh.com.au he was very impressed by the pair's precision flying.

"Holy cow! Whoa! Wow! That's amazing," he exclaimed while watching footage of it today.
Singleman last year recorded the highest BASE-jump in history when he and his wife, Heather Swan, launched themselves in wing suits off a 6604-metre high precipice on Meru Peak in northern India.

He said that, although Cani and Corliss's stunt looked dangerous, the wing suits they were wearing would have allowed them to control their trajectory and speed.

"It seems incredibly dangerous but you have a very good idea of the angle that you are flying and you can see that he kind of pushed it deliberately.

"The suit is high performance enough that they can fly clean over [the statue] without any problems. At any time if there was a problem they could have easily got out of it."

He said the pair would have zoomed past the statue so quickly that onlookers would hardly have had time to realise that humans were flying past.

"Unless [the onlookers] knew what to look for, they just would have heard a sound. [The pair] would have gone past the statue at easily 150kmh ... It's an amazing noise, just like a huge falcon sweeping [down]."

He said he and Swan would love to do the statue jump themselves.