James Miller (parachutist)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Jarrett Miller also known as Fan Man (October 28, 1963–September 2002) was a parachutist and paraglider pilot from Henderson, Nevada, known for his outrageous appearances at various sporting events. His most famous appearance was during a 1993 boxing match between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip near Las Vegas, Nevada. Fan Man made headlines in the United States when he used his powered paraglider to fly into the arena, eventually crashing into the ring.
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[edit] Background
Born in Havre de Grace, Maryland, Miller was an avid outdoorsman, computer technician, small business owner, and extreme sports enthusiast who enjoyed power paragliding. He was introduced to paragliders while living in Las Vegas.[1]
He started with a jetpack tied to his back and moved up to two-cycle aircraft engines that powered him through the skies above the desert. He began setting power-gliding records for altitude and distance and also obtained a reputation for reckless daring.
After his publicized stunts, the Federal Aviation Administration threatened Miller with a lengthy sentence in a federal prison if he performed any more stunts.
Miller relocated to Valdez, Alaska where he continued to fly ultralight aircraft and paragliders in the Alaskan wilderness until he developed heart problems. He was diagnosed with a serious coronary condition, had heart surgery, and was forced to close his small computer business in Valdez in order to move to Anchorage, where he was closer to medical care and friends and family.
[edit] The Fan Man Fight
Miller's first and most famous stunt happened during the 1993 heavyweight title fight between Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield. Miller descended into the second minute of the seventh round of the fight, after circling Caesar’s Palace for 25 minutes. The lines of his paraglider became tangled in the overhead lights. He landed on the top rope of the ring with his parachute still tangled in the lights. He tried to hang on with one foot and one hand on that top rope for a few seconds until he either fell or was dragged down into the crowd by spectators, his parachute ripping away from the lights above. Fans swarmed around him immediately and began attacking him. He was knocked unconscious during the attack. One security officer reportedly struck Miller twenty times. He was rushed to a nearby hospital as spectators cut his paraglider into pieces for souvenirs. After his release from the hospital, Miller was taken to the Clark County Detention Center, where he was charged with dangerous flying and released on $200 bail.
"It was a heavyweight fight," Miller would joke later, "and I was the only guy who got knocked out."
The media immediately dubbed Miller "Fan Man," for the paramotor (lightweight engine and propellor) attached to his harness.
Fox Sports Net ranked this incident as the #1 "Most Outrageous Sports Moment".
[edit] Other stunts
In January 1994, Miller flew into a Denver Broncos-Los Angeles Raiders American football game at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. He was arrested for interfering with a sporting event. After the game, Raiders defensive end Howie Long said that had Miller landed in the stands, the physical assault he received in Las Vegas would have paled in comparison as a result of Raider Nation's notorious raucousness. "Magnify that beating tenfold. That's what he would have gotten here," Long said. [4]
In February 1994, he skydived into the middle of a soccer match in Bolton, England.
A few weeks after the stunt, Miller used a powered paraglider to get on top of Buckingham Palace after painting himself green and covering his private parts with glow-in-the-dark paint. British authorities evacuated the palace in seven minutes, then came for Miller, who was arrested on the roof. They charged him with terrorism, believing he had connections with the Irish Republican Army.
"What was funny was I was trying to make a point to the Irish that they didn’t need to use violence to protest British policies," Miller told Valdez newspapers years later.
British authorities interrogated Miller in an effort to learn who had helped him. He was threatened with a life sentence but refused to reveal his accomplices.
Less than a year after his Fan Man crusade began, Miller was convicted in Great Britain of "flying without a ticket of air worthiness," fined ₤600, held in prison for forty-two days, branded an international terrorist by Interpol, and banished from the United Kingdom for life.
"When the judge said I was deported for life, I asked if my ashes could be buried in England," Miller told a Valdez newspaper. "The judge just looked at me and said, ‘No.’"
[edit] Death
Miller was reported missing on September 22, 2002. On March 9, 2003, a group of hunters bushwhacking through the woods on the Kenai Peninsula found a decomposing body identified as that of James Miller. Miller had hanged himself from a tree, and the death was ruled a suicide.[2]
Although Miller's disappearance and death were reported in the local press, his suicide did not become widely known outside Alaska until later in 2003, when ESPN went searching for him to film a SportsCenter feature to be shown during the tenth anniversary of his stunt.
It seems that Miller committed suicide after having suffered for some time from a debilitating heart disease and further burdened with medical bills. [3] Police said he had chosen the remote Resurrection Trail in Chugach National Forest, veering deep off-trail to a spot that might not have been discovered for years, if ever.
