Etihad Airways: The Final Mission

Etihad Airways, the UAE’s national airline, revealed an electrifying stunt in celebration of its collaboration with Paramount Pictures on the worldwide launch of the highly-anticipated film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. In the adrenaline-fueled video, Etihad Airways performed a stunt that had never been done before. In collaboration with Paramount, Etihad put together a skydiving orchestra, who could play the instantly recognisable Mission: Impossible theme song while falling 13,000 feet at 193 km/h through the air. To pull it off, Etihad Airways, together with their advertising agency Impact BBDO, launched a global search for professional skydivers who were also talented musicians. They also recruited a skilled skydiving cinematographer that could capture everything on film. The stunt took weeks of preparation. Each skydiver was given their part of music to practice and learn by heart, which they needed to be able to play perfectly despite the wild environment while skydiving. In addition, custom rigging attached each instrument to the skydivers for safety. Each diver had to be able to safely play the instrument and then free their hands to pull the parachute, which was not an easy task. The rigging ended up affecting the rate at which the musicians fell which added another layer of complexity when it came to filming.