A 42-year-old skydiver with more than 18,000 jumps made history when he became the first person to survive a leap without a parachute.

After a two-minute freefall, Luke Aikins flipped onto his back at the last second and landed dead centre into a 100-by-100-foot net at the Big Sky movie ranch on the outskirts of Simi Valley in California. Cheers rose from those who gathered to watch the stunt, including his family.

The jump — from the death-defying altitude of 25,000 feet — makes Aikins the only skydiver ever to go from plane to planet Earth without a parachute.

The stunt, broadcast live on the Fox network for the TV special “Stride Gum Presents Heaven Sent,” nearly didn’t come off as planned when Aikins revealed just before climbing into his plane that the Screen Actors Guild had ordered him to wear a parachute to ensure his safety.

Aikins didn’t say what prompted the original restriction, and representatives for the show and the Screen Actors Guild did not immediately respond to phone and email messages.

Aikins said he considered pulling out at that point because having the parachute canister on his back would make his landing in the net far more dangerous. If he had to wear it he said he wouldn’t bother to pull the ripcord anyway.

“I’m going all the way to the net, no question about it,” he said from the plane. “I’ll just have to deal with the consequences when I land of wearing the parachute on my back and what it’s going to do to my body.”

A few minutes before the jump one of the show’s hosts said the requirement had been lifted. Aikins left the plane without the chute.

He jumped with three other skydivers, each wearing parachutes. One had a camera, another trailed smoke so people on the ground could follow

his descent and the third took an oxygen canister he handed off after they got to an altitude where it was no longer needed.