They seek to make a mark in the skies of Arecibo

Antonio “Nery” Guarbe Airport in Arecibo has become a meeting point for more than 400 professional skydivers from Puerto Rico, Chicago, Italy, Belgium, Mexico and other parts of the world. In addition to trainees, skydiving enthusiasts and tandems who participated in “Puerto Rican Outcast” Skydiving Festival.

According to Ernesto Diaz Zambrana, owner of Skydive Puerto Rico Skydiving Academy, which is organizing the event in collaboration with Skydive Chicago: It is expected that many jumping records will be broken at the national level.

“This festival used to be held every year in Arecibo and about four or five years ago there was a hiatus, and Skydive Chicago, one of the most important academies in the world, contacted us to do the festival, and we are resuming it.” Diaz Zambrana explained.

“Skydive Chicago is in charge of the record and they brought their two planes, two Twinn Otters, which seat 24 people, as well as our Caravan plane, which is a little smaller, in a joint effort to break the training mark. The last record was 26 people in formation. Díaz Zambrana explained: “During all days of the festival, in the morning, we try to set a new record by forming 35 people at a time in formation.”

The businessman who founded the academy with his wife Karen, a veteran skydiver examiner for the Mexican Armed Forces, explained that Skydive Chicago's participation in the event gives him the opportunity to achieve greater reach for the festival, as it is an academy located in the most important skydiving area in the world, which is Chicago.

“They have a lot of calls, and through them all these people come here, because we will use their planes. It's all about the planes, because in skydiving we're not going to jump out of a Cessna plane. “We jump out of Twin Otter planes that allow 24 people to jump at a time “It is to explain.

For his part, Carlos Serrano, coordinator of the teams that will seek to break the training jump mark, indicated that they have been working for about seven or eight months, and not only have they coordinated the event in which many skydiving, aviation, skydiving equipment, and skydiving companies are participating. And academies, but also coordination is being made to obtain and train paratroopers who can carry out the training.

“You have to find someone who has the ability to do it, put them together, and have the right space to literally walk what the jump is. In other words, you organize the training, everything that will be done in the air, and then you walk up to the plane, in the air, and watch it. It's a process that requires a lot of time and patience, as once you leave, from the moment you board, everything is already coordinated properly. Boarding the plane, where to sit, when to exit, where to exit, where to enter the formation, how to enter the formation, how to stay there and how to exit the formation so that everyone is safenarrated.

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He added that in the first two days of the event, an attempt was made to train 26 people, but that was not possible. “We tried this morning. It didn't work. We made some changes in the organization. Tomorrow morning we go again. And if not tomorrow, the next morning. If not, the next morning,” Serrano revealed. Serrano revealed that they face a challenge. Another is the height at which the jump is made. According to the lawyer, when it comes to breaking the jump marks, this is done from a higher height, which requires the use of oxygen, but they did not have enough time to supply the ships with oxygen, so the jumps are stopped. From a height 15 thousand feet.

Skydive is a family business and among the skydivers involved in the record-breaking are some of Eduardo's family members: his father, his brother Ramon, his wife Karen and his daughter Karen Montaño, 22, who has been skydiving since he was three years old. year.

Karen holds the girls' jumping record in Puerto Rico and three formation jumping records in Mexico, including a 50-person formation, the largest ever in that country. The young woman, who in addition to studying paragliding, described skydiving as a feeling of “freedom.”

“In an airplane, you have a mechanism that takes you through the air, but here you are alone in the air. You rely only on your body and of course on your team. But before you open the parachute, you fly with your body and the air passes through your arms and legs. So, it is a complete feeling of freedom and knowing that if “You can jump out of a plane, you can do anything.”

The Castaway Puerto Rico Skydiving Festival continues until next Sunday, and in addition to the parachute jumps and the attempt to set 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 skydiving. expertise. For tandem jumps, you can call Skydive Puerto Rico at 787-436-6215 or 787-472-3483. To register for Castaway Puerto Rico, you can access the following link: www.skydivechicago.com.