Tom Cruise almost faked HALO jump in ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’

The HALO jump in “Mission:
Impossible – Fallout.”
Paramount

• The HALO jump in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” almost
  had to be faked.
• The Royal Air Force would only allow Cruise to do the
  stunt from 12,000 feet, not 25,000 feet, which would be a true
  HALO jump.
• However, after Cruise broke his ankle while attempting
  a stunt for the movie, everything changed, according
  to Allan Hewitt, the “Fallout” skydiving
  coordinator.

The HALO jump in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” took
a year to execute, and required special equipment, building
the world’s largest wind tunnel for training, and over 106 jumps
out of a plane to get it in the film.

However, all of that would have been wasted if Tom Cruise hadn’t
broken his ankle.

In a movie filled with thrilling moments, one of its most
dazzling is in the beginning of the movie when Ethan Hunt
(Cruise) and CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavill) do a
high-altitude, low-open (HALO) skydive into Paris. Though a
stunt double did the jump in Cavill’s place, Cruise did the
entire thing — jumping out of a C-17 plane from 25,000 feet and
playing out the scene in free fall. 

According to Allan Hewitt, the “Fallout” skydiving
coordinator, the plan to do a true HALO jump was almost thwarted
by the Royal Air Force. 

Because the production’s home base was in England, the plan
was to shoot the HALO scenes with the RAF’s planes and crew.
However, the RAF refused to fly the “Fallout” team to an
extremely high altitude. They would only let Cruise jump from
12,000 feet. 

“Tom didn’t want to fake it — he wanted to do it for real
at 25,000 feet,” Hewitt
told Business Insider. “But the producers said they weren’t
going to another country. It really looked like we were going to
fake it with the RAF.”

But all that changed when Cruise broke his ankle while
attempting a stunt for the movie. 

Because production was halted, they missed its scheduled
time to jump with the RAF. With the wait time, everyone regrouped
and agreed that the HALO jump would happen at the end of filming
in Abu Dhabi, where Cruise would be allowed to jump from 25,000
feet.

“If Tom didn’t break his ankle, we would have ended up
faking it, which nobody wanted,” Hewitt said.