The Antonio ‘Neri’ Juarbe airport in Arecibo became the meeting point for over 400 professional skydivers from Puerto Rico, Chicago, Italy, Belgium, Mexico and other parts of the world, as well as trainees and enthusiasts of skydiving and the ‘tandem’, which since Tuesday have been participating in the ‘Castaway Puerto Rico’ skydiving festival.
As explained by Ernesto Díaz Zambrana, owner of the Skydive Puerto Rico skydiving academy, which organizes the event together with Skydive Chicago, several national training jump records are expected to be broken.
More than 400 skydivers from Puerto Rico, the United States, Belgium, Italy, Mexico and other countries are in Arecibo to participate in the Castaway Puerto Rico skydiving festival, which ends on Sunday. “This festival was held every year in Arecibo and about four or five years ago there was a pause, and Skydive Chicago, which is one of the most important academies in the world, approached us to do it. “We were the festival, and we are taking it back,” explained Díaz Zambrana.
“Skydive Chicago is handling registration and brought its planes, two Twinn Otters, which seat 24 people, plus our slightly smaller Caravan plane, in a joint effort to to be able to break the training mark. The last record was 26 people in a formation. During all the days of the festival, in the morning, we are trying to establish a new record of a formation of 35 people at a time in a formation,” explained Díaz Zambrana.
The businessman, who founded the academy with his wife Karin, a veteran skydiving examiner of the Mexican Armed Forces, explained that Skydive Chicago’s participation in the event gives him the opportunity to achieve greater reach for the festival, by It is an academy located in the most important skydiving area in the world, which is Chicago.
“They have a lot of calls, so it is through them that all these people come here, because we are going to use their planes. It’s all about airplanes, because in skydiving we’re not going to jump out of a Cessna. We are jumping from Twin Otter planes that allow 24 people to jump at a time,” he explained.
For his part, Carlos Serrano, coordinator of the teams that will seek to break the training jump mark, indicated that they have been around seven or eight months, not only coordinating the event in which several skydiving, aviation and , parachuting equipment and academies, but also coordinating to obtain and train parachutists who can do the training.
“You have to find the person who has the ability to do it, group them, have the right space to literally walk what the jump is. That is, you organize the training, everything that is going to be done in the air, and then you walk towards the plane, in the air, watching it. It is a process that requires a lot of time and patience, because as soon as you are leaving, from the moment you get on the plane everything is already properly coordinated. Getting on the plane, where they sit, when you get off, where you get off, where you get to the formation, how you get into the formation, how you stay there and how you get out of the formation so that everyone is there. “sure,” he said.
He added that in the first two days of the event, an attempt was made to train 26 people, but it was not possible. “We try this morning. It didn’t work. We have made some changes in the organization. Tomorrow morning we go again. And if not tomorrow, the next morning. And if not, the next morning,” he said. Serrano revealed that they face another challenge, and that is the height at which the jumps are being made. According to the lawyer, when it comes to breaking jump records, these are done from a higher altitude, which entails the use of oxygen, but they did not have enough time to equip the ships with oxygen, so the jumps They are being carried out from a height of 15 thousand feet.
Skydive is a family business and among the skydivers who participate to break records are some members of Eduardo’s family: his father, his brother Ramón, his wife Karin and his daughter, Karin Montaño, 22 years old and who began skydiving at the age of three.
Karin holds a record in girls’ jumping in Puerto Rico and three formation jumping records in Mexico, among them, a formation of 50 people, which is the largest ever made in that country. The young woman, who in addition to skydiving studies aviation, described skydiving as a feeling of “freedom.”
“On a plane you have the mechanism taking you through the air, but here you are alone in the air. You depend only on your body and of course, on your team. But before opening the parachute, you fly with your body and the air passes through your arms and legs. So, well, it is a total feeling of freedom and knowing that, if you can jump out of a plane, you can do anything,” he narrated.
The Castaway Puerto Rico skydiving festival continues until this Sunday and in addition to parachute jumps and trying to establish national records for formation jumps, an average of 75 tandem jumps will also be performed daily , so that those who have never skydived can enjoy the experience. For tandem jumps you can contact Skydive Puerto Rico at 787-436-6215 or 787-472-3483. To register at Castaway Puerto Rico, you can access the following link: www.skydivechicago.com.