‘Brilliant’ parachutist saved by a thread in 4,000f t fall
A SKYDIVER whose adulterous husband tried to murder her by sabotaging her parachute only survived the 4,000ft fall because of a single line of strapping, a court heard yesterday.
Victoria Cilliers, an ‘absolutely brilliant’ and ‘highly competent’ skydive instructor, went into freefall when her main and reserve parachutes both failed to deploy during a jump over Salisbury Plain on April 5, 2015.
Her husband, Emile Cilliers, 37, who was having two affairs, is accused of tampering with her parachute in a bid to kill her after a failed murder attempt only days earlier.
The army fitness instructor allegedly turned on a gas valve at their marital home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, to try to cause an explosion.
Cilliers allegedly wanted to get his hands on his wife’s £120,000 life insurance to pay off his debts, and was having flings with his ex-wife Carly, 38, and with lover Stefanie Goller.
Mark Bayada, chief instructor of the Army Parachute Association at Netheravon since 2013, said it was ‘luck’ that Mrs Cilliers, 40, originally from Haddington, East Lothian, survived the jump.
The expert, who has been a parachutist with the military for 30 years, was one of the first people on the scene after Mrs Cilliers’ fall and later examined her kit.
He said two vital safety straps attaching the canopy to the harness were missing from the righthand side of the reserve chute, causing it to tangle into a ball.
Only the single steering line remained on the right-hand side – but it was this millimetres-thick thread that saved her, Winchester Crown Court was told. Mr Bayada said: ‘There was one line attached. It gave the chute enough lift to be a survivable landing. Without doubt it would have been a fatal accident without that [steering line].’
He added: ‘I think luck came into it. She was very light and she landed on a freshly ploughed field that was exceptionally soft.’
Mr Bayada said Mrs Cilliers, who has completed more than 2,600 jumps, was one of the top parachutists in the country and there was no error on her part.
He added: ‘She left the plane at the correct altitude, she opened the parachute at the correct altitude.
‘She was seen to have a malfunction and it was seen by witnesses that she dealt with that malfunction and then operated the reserve. What happened afterwards, there was nothing she could have done about that.’
Mr Bayada was working at the base on Salisbury Plain on April 5, 2015, when he received a ‘panicked’ call from a colleague saying: ‘Someone’s been killed.’
He said: ‘I was told very little... [My colleague] Justin Everitt indicated there had been a malfunction but his voice was gone.
‘He was not able to talk in full and tell me what happened, which is very unusual for him.
‘I knew straight away it was something out of the ordinary. He said something like, “There has been a malfunction, it is serious. Someone has been killed.”’
The court heard how Mr Bayada rushed out to where Mrs Cilliers had fallen with another colleague, who got to her first and yelled: ‘She’s not dead.’
Mr Bayada then drove back to the base to find doctors and medi- cally trained club members. When he returned he saw Mrs Cilliers lying on her back with the reserve parachute on the left-hand side.
The reserve parachute was only moved to shield her from debris as the air ambulance landed nearby.
Mr Bayada said: ‘While she was being treated I noticed the suspension lines on the reserve were in a tight ball. I noticed the reserve lines were knotted and bundled up in a fairly tight knot. I had never seen that before.
‘I was trying to work out what might have gone wrong because reserve parachutes just do not malfunction. It alarmed me when I saw the lines knotted that way.
‘As Vicky was moved on to the stretcher or the stretcher was moved with Vicky on it, we had a look underneath to see nothing was getting caught and that is the first time I saw the reserve did not have anything attached to it.
‘Two risers did not have attachments [slinks]. Both slinks on the same side, Vicky’s right-hand side, were not there. The effect of that is a catastrophic failure of the reserve.’
Cilliers, who is living in army barracks in Aldershot, Hampshire, denies two counts of attempted murder and criminal damage as to recklessly endanger life.
The trial continues.
‘Landed on freshly ploughed field’