Victoria Cilliers

Victoria lives in Wiltshire, England, and is a physiotherapist for the Ministry of Defence.[1]

Victoria's ex-husband Emile Cilliers was born in South Africa in 1980 and moved to the UK in the early 2000s. He has two children from a previous marriage. He met Victoria in 2009, and they have two children. Their relationship deteriorated before his 2015 attempt on her life.[1]

She became a successful parachutist and instructor, with 2,654 jumps.[2]

During a parachute jump on Easter Sunday 2015, both her standard and reserve parachutes failed to open. She fell 4,000 ft to the ground. She survived the fall despite life-threatening injuries[1] because she landed on a soft, newly ploughed field.[2] It was the second attempt on her life in less than a week[2]

Emile Cilliers was convicted of her attempted murder in May 2018[3][4] after a previous trial failed to reach a verdict.[5] He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years.[1] He was also convicted of tampering with a gas valve at their home.[4]

• I Survived is an autobiographical memoir published by Pan Macmillan[1]
• The Parachute Murder Plot is a 2018 documentary film by All3Media about the murder attempt, with Fiona Bruce
• The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot is a 2024 Channel 4 television documentary about the murder attempt (originally commissioned as The Woman Who Fell To Earth[6])

• Malfunction (parachuting)
• Netheravon Airfield
• Death of Stephen Hilder, in a parachute incident in 2003
• Parachute Murder, a 2010 Belgian love triangle skydiving murder case

• Victoria Cilliers in the Independent
• R vs Cilliers Sentencing Remarks