All the best comes from above ...

… they said. Whether the homeowner in Atascadero, a suburb of San Luis Obispo, California, sees it that way is not known. In any case, a military parachutist crashed through his roof.

The incident occurred late in the afternoon on July 7, when residents of the neighborhood saw the parachutist falling onto the house under a partially opened canopy. The parachutist hit the tiled roof of the house and fell through. The resident was not at home at the time, but he was quickly found by a neighbor who immediately called emergency services.

The parachutist was a British soldier who was apparently in the USA for training and to learn HALO jumping. This military free-fall technique is described in a US Army manual from 2005: "High-Altitude-Low-Opening (HALO) operations involve jumps with a drop altitude of up to 35,000 feet above mean sea level (MSL) and a parachute opening altitude at or below 6,000 feet above ground level (AGL). HALO infiltrations are the preferred MFF method of infiltration when the enemy air defense posture does not pose a serious threat to the infiltration platform. HALO infiltrations require the infiltration platform to fly within a radius of several kilometers around the drop zone."

The British soldier was lucky: his heavy equipment bag apparently broke through the lightly constructed roof in front and beneath him. The man did not suffer serious injuries. With German or Austrian roofs, he wouldn't have gotten off so easily... More about Special Forces HALO jumping on SOFREP.

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