First Officer's Video Edition:
In preparation for Independence Day, this July 26th in the Republic of The Maldives, 'Maldivian', the local Seaplane airline, is tasked by the Home Ministry to remove floats from it's DHC-6-300 Twin Otter seaplane aircraft, put wheels on and support Malaysian Jump Instructors from Kuala Lumpur Skydive to train Maldivian civilians and military citizens to jump static, and fly a parachute canopy (most of whom have never even jumped tandem prior to this).
Apart from a demonstration jump into Galolhu National Stadium in Malé recently, this will be the second time skydiving/parachuting has been done in the Maldives before. The first time being in 2007 from a Dornier 228 over Hanimaadhoo.
To celebrate 50 years of independence, the jumpers must be trained to land safely at the National Stadium in an extremely confined area on the capital city island of Malé, which is densely populated with tall buildings. The training was conducted over 3 weeks in Gan Airport, Addu Atoll, Maldives from an altitude of 3500 feet above the airfield.
This video footage is First Officer A.C's (AviaTube) edit which is in collaboration with Captain D.K's (Floatinghog) filming which was conducted over 4 days within 2 weeks of jumps shared between a Sony Action Cam, GoPro HERO 3+, iPhone 5 and a Panasonic handheld video camera. The footage is not necessarily from the same day for each scene however, this gives a better overview of the events of the 4 days combined into one sortie.
The aircraft 8Q-IAL is operated multi-crew, as we do on water for normal scheduled operations. The pilots are both Australian, the jump team is headed by Mr Azlan of KL Skydive, Malaysia (Jump Instructors: Karim, Haziq. Erwan. The jumpers are all Maldivian citizens and the second flight crew are both Maldivian.