Herald Fear Factor: A leap of faith...and then the parachute malfunctions

Fear factor — Herald reporters face their fears.

Last month Herald reporter Morgan Tait completed a jump with Skydive Auckland - part of the same company as Skydive Taupo - as part of a Fear Factor-style challenge. During her tandem jump at Parakai her parachute malfunctioned. Like the pilot, instructors and jumpers at Lake Taupo, she landed unscathed. Today she describes the experience.

Helplessness takes on a new meaning when you are roughly 16,500ft above the earth, falling back towards it at 200km/h and watching the grey and pink parachute meant to be getting you there safely plummeting into a cluster of trees.

The moment tranquility transformed into terror is captured on GoPro footage of my first ever skydive.

I had leapt from the Skydive Auckland plane into a sunny and practically cloudless sky strapped to a Skydive Auckland instructor named Billy with 25 years and 12,000 jumps of experience.

It was an activity I had happily avoided until this time, and was only completing to appease my boss last month.

Little did I know, the activity would prove immensely more daring than the laidback Friday frolicking in the air above West Auckland I thought I had signed up for.

I learnt, for example that there is bad news to be heard when you are suspended above the earth by nothing more than a glorified sheet.

It sounds like this:

"See that over there? That was meant to be our parachute."

That's how Billy broke the news to me that our chute had malfunctioned.

Herald journalist Morgan Tait tries out a parachute jump over Kumeu north of Auckland. Photo / supplied

By this stage he had already activated its bright orange back-up and we were floating under the emergency canopy back to terra firma.

Though malfunctions are not common - I was just the fourth in Billy's long career - they are what the back-up parachute is for and one of the situations instructors can resolve midair.

This is little reassurance. The exhilaration of the previous 75 seconds - when I whooshed gloriously through layers of the atmosphere usually reserved for things with wings and motors - vanished.

My new appreciation for the Kaipara Harbour and rugged west coast that looked so delicate and serene from height, drained as fast as the colour from my face.

I felt like I had just faced death wearing a blue boiler suit and ridiculous plastic goggles, and landing couldn't happen fast enough.

Despite the terror and helplessness of my close call, it was obvious that Billy had the situation under control and instructors are well equipped to resolve these situations.

*Thanks to Skydive Auckland and Billy, and also photographer Brett Phibbs who reassured me it would be easy to get a photo of my landing if he kept his eyes on the grey and pink parachute...