A skydiver has survived a 2,000ft fall onto the roof of an aircraft hangar after his parachute failed.

Paul Lewis, who is in his forties, was airlifted to hospital with head and neck injuries. Last night he was in a stable condition and, according to friends, in “good spirits”.

Lewis, a skydive cameraman with 20 years’ experience, was filming a parachutist making her first jump from 10,000ft, near Whitchurch in Shropshire, at 3pm on Friday. At 3,000ft his main parachute failed and he tried to release his reserve.

The reserve parachute opened, but a malfunction caused it to spiral rapidly to the ground. He fell 2,000ft with the canopy partially open before landing on the steel roof of an aircraft hangar.

Colin Fitzmaurice, owner of the Parachute Centre, where Lewis flew from, said: “I watched him fall and as soon as I saw the parachute spiral I knew something was wrong. Even before he hit the ground, I called an ambulance.

“He is incredibly lucky, he’s almost without an injury. If he’d fallen 10ft either way he would have landed on concrete. I went to see him earlier today and he was in good spirits.”

Lewis landed on one side of the pitched roof of a 30ft-high aircraft hangar. His parachute snagged on the roof, stopping him falling to the ground.

Initially there was little the ambulance and fire service could do because of the height of the hangar, according to Fitzmaurice. It took nearly an hour for a fire engine with a sufficiently tall cherry-picker to arrive before paramedics could even treat Lewis.

He was immobilised and airlifted to hospital. Fitzmaurice said: “The steel roof took some of the force out of the fall. I was the first to arrive at the scene and couldn’t believe how lucky he’d been.”

He added: “He did hit it hard, but he was using a full-face helmet which protected him. I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years and you do see people die. I’m just relieved he’s okay.”

Lewis is not the only skydiver to have survived a fall. In May James Boole fell 6,000ft into the side of a snow-covered mountain in Russia after he opened his parachute too late while filming a stunt.

One of the most remarkable tales of survival was that of Shayna Richardson, an American skydiving student who fell 10,000ft into a car park after her parachute failed in October 2005. When surgeons operated on her they found she was pregnant. Both she and the baby survived.

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