An almost deadly descent: The attempted murder of Victoria Cilliers

Easter Sunday is supposed to be a holiday full of food and family fun, but for 41-year-old Victoria Cilliers, it would leave emotional and physical scars.

On 5th April 2015, she climbed into a small aircraft over Wiltshire for a skydiving adventure, something which she had enjoyed regularly before the birth of her two children. Her husband, 38-year-old Emile Cilliers, had organised the jump and watched from the ground below.

What happened next terrified onlookers. Victoria’s parachutes failed, and she hurtled 4,000 feet to the ground. Nobody expected her to survive. One person banked on her not.

As the 11 year anniversary of the crime approaches, the Crime+Investigation team takes a deep dive into the case.

An almost deadly descent

On the morning of 5th April 2015, Victoria Cilliers arrived at Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire, a popular military and civilian skydiving site. The excursion had been organised by her husband, Emile Cilliers, as a gift. Victoria had completed over 2,500 jumps in the past but had taken a break following the birth of the couple’s two children. The Easter skydive was supposed to mark her return to the sport.

Shortly before midday, she boarded a small aircraft with a group of fellow skydivers and began the 4,000-foot ascent. Conditions were calm, and there was nothing unusual about the booking, equipment checks or flight. Victoria was excited, totally unaware of what was about to happen.

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When she exited the aircraft, everything went smoothly. But seconds later, her main parachute malfunctioned. 'It just didn’t feel right,' she later told the court. 'The lines were twisted. I was spinning.' Thanks to her decades of experience, she knew what to do. She quickly cut away the main canopy and deployed her reserve, but that didn’t work either.

Witnesses watched in horror as Victoria plummeted to the ground. They later described her looking 'like a rag doll being flung about underneath a malformed canopy'. She struck the ground at high speed. First responders were so sure she was dead that they attended the scene with a body bag.

Yet she survived.

Experts later suggested that the softness of the recently ploughed field cushioned her fall. However, she sustained catastrophic injuries, including a shattered pelvis, broken ribs, spinal fractures and a punctured lung. She was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition.

At the time, many believed it had been a tragic accident, but they were wrong.

Deliberate sabotage

It didn’t take long for investigators to realise this was no accident. Parachute malfunctions are rare; two in the same jump were unheard of. As specialists examined the equipment, they discovered it had been deliberately tampered with. The reserve parachute lines had been carefully knotted, and the soft links connecting the main canopy had been loosened.

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When police examined who had access to the kit in the days before the jump, their attention quickly turned to Emile. He was the only person who had been alone with the equipment shortly before the skydive.

In court, Victoria told the jury that her husband had stashed the parachutes in their locker rather than return them to the communal store, something she found unusual at the time. Prosecutors later argued that Emile deliberately kept the sabotaged kit separate to ensure no one else would use it before the jump.

A family falling apart

As investigators dug deeper into the family finances and dynamics, Emile’s double life unravelled. He was in significant debt, which he often bankrolled by stealing money from his wife. When he wasn’t burning through payday loans, he was juggling several affairs with exes, girlfriends and prostitutes.

They also revisited a separate incident that happened days earlier: a gas leak at the family home. During the trial, the court heard that a gas valve had been deliberately loosened while Victoria and the children slept upstairs.

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Trial and sentencing

Emile Cilliers was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of his wife.

Prosecutors argued that the parachute sabotage had been carefully planned, motivated by affairs and life insurance policies taken out in Victoria’s name. The defence maintained that the fall was accidental and there was no evidence specifically linking Emile to the faulty equipment.

Despite protesting his innocence, the jury found Emile guilty on both counts in May 2018. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 18 years.

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