Wife falls 4,000 feet after husband allegedly tampers with her parachute

On a cloudy day in 2015, British army sergeant Emile Cilliers offered to take his wife skydiving as a treat. It turned out to be anything but.

Victoria Cilliers, who'd previously taken part in 2,600 skydives, was helpless when both her main and reserve parachutes failed, sending her plummeting 4,000 feet to the ground.

Never before in the UK had there been a double parachute failure and those who first reached her expected to find the army physiotherapist dead, report the BBC and Guardian.

So, too, did her husband, according to prosecutors, but she survived. Speaking at Cilliers' attempted murder trial this week, prosecutors described how Cilliers allegedly removed half of the clips connecting his wife's harness to the parachutes in an effort to rid her from his life.

Having promised to start a new life with a woman he'd met on Tinder, Cilliers didn't initially plan for the botched skydive, which Victoria survived with a broken pelvis, ribs, and vertebrae, prosecutors say.