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Victoria Cilliers is a skydiver who survived a murder attempt on her in 2015 when both her main and reserve parachutes were interfered with.

Early life and marriage

Victoria lives in Wiltshire, England, and is a physiotherapist for the Ministry of Defence.^[1]

Victoria's ex-husband Emile Cilliers was born in South Africa in 1980 and moved to the UK in the early 2000s. He has four children from previous relationships. He met Victoria in 2009, and they have two children. Their relationship deteriorated before his 2015 attempt on her life.^[1]

She became a successful parachutist and instructor, with 2,654 jumps.^[2]

Murder attempt

During a parachute jump on Easter Sunday 2015, both her standard and reserve parachutes failed to open. She fell 4,000 ft (1,200 m) to the ground. She survived the fall despite life-threatening injuries^[1] because she landed on a soft, newly ploughed field.^[2] It was the second attempt on her life in less than a week.^[2]

Emile Cilliers was convicted of her attempted murder in May 2018^[3]^[4] after a previous trial failed to reach a verdict.^[5] He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years.^[1] He was also convicted of tampering with a gas valve at their home.^[4]

Media

I Survived is an autobiographical memoir published by Pan Macmillan^[1]
The Parachute Murder Plot is a 2018 documentary film by All3Media about the murder attempt, with Fiona Bruce
The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot is a 2024 Channel 4 television documentary about the murder attempt (originally commissioned as The Woman Who Fell To Earth^[6])