posted Apr 25th, 2016 - The Sun Path Products NSL News features a new NSL Profile, and it's not one of the several current or former 4-way and 8-way world champions who is being introduced to the SKYLEAGUE.COM audience "Up Close & Personal".

However, Sven Ibens would probably be a 4-way world champion by now had he continued with Roy Janssen, David and Andy Grauwels and the HayaBusa project. He decided in 2006 to give priority to his job and family and continued as a recreational 4-way competitor.

His career story includes the funniest moment, which happened for him at the World Cup 2012. The same event was also one of his favorite competitions in his 29-year skydiving career. Sven Ibens is not planning to give up his 4-way and 8-way passion any time soon, and he has plenty of time: "I don't know why, but I sincerely believe that I will reach the age of 100..."

Sven Ibens' recent career since forming Thunder ISR has been well documented by the Sun Path Products NSL News. The career story for his NSL Profile will now rather pick up one of the Up Close & Personal topics that cannot be found anywhere in the news updates: "Funniest Moment in Skydiving".

Sven Ibens has plenty of funny stories, which 29 years in the sport easily provide. However, there is one story that sticks out, and it shows how humble this perfect team mate with a quiet authority really is, as Sven Ibens himself was in the center of the mishap...

He will never forget Round 9 at the World Cup in Prostejov 2012, where he had some problems with the exit procedure: "The jump plane is a Turbolet, flying fast. We are in the plane with HayaBusa and the Norwegian girls. We're first out and we had to launch Block 12 (Bundy - Bundy)."

World Cup 2012			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		1,19,2	14,18,15	N,16,20	E,6,J,A	C,K,9,13	F,8,11	Q,22,L,21	B,17,H,P	12,D,0,4	G,10,7	Total	Avg
1	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	21	19	22	33	31	22	23	40	24	26	261	26.1
2	Thunder	BE	20	17	20	24	27	20	20	31	20	19	218	21.8
3	SportLoto	RU	16	17	21	29	20	19	20	31	19	20	212	21.2
4	Satori	UK	16	15	17	28	23	19	20	25	19	20	202	20.2
5	Deep Blue Defenders	FR	16	15	17	27	21	17	20	31	19	16	199	19.9
6	Ex3mo 4	IT	17	12	17	28	20	15	19	28	17	15	188	18.8
7	Magic 4	LT	12	9	11	16	15	13	11	20	10	14	131	13.1
8	May Team	UA	11	8	8	16	12	11	11	17	13	-	107	11.9
9	Quagis	UK	6	6	6	9	8	7	8	8	4	-	62	6.9
10	Turkey	TR	5	6	6	7	8	7	7	9	5	-	60	6.7
11	Cyprus	CY	2	4	5	8	3	7	6	8	6	-	49	5.4

Nothing unusual happened on the ride to altitude, and the Thunder members were preparing themselves for this meet round as for any other one, completely focused. Then the real story began: "Red light - door open. Final visualization before the jump. Green light..."

Thunder climbed out, and the team members took their positions in the door. Sven Ibens was the last one to take his place as the Inside Center, and things began to get out of control then: "I see everyone more or less comfortable in the door and I take my grips. Wesley is head-jamming in the door and needs to have my leg grip."

The Turbolet has a slightly higher door compared to a Twin Otter or a Cessna Caravan, which makes head-jamming and reaching grips more difficult for the Outside Center: "Wesley has a hard time getting my grip and I decide to help him by lifting my leg. As I do, I feel that I am completely out of balance, but I cannot put my foot back on the floor, because Wesley already has my grip..."

Sven Ibens finally lost balance completely, and disaster struck Thunder: "Before I can give the count, I am falling back into the plane, and I am literally lying on the ground." He thought that this was not really a good time to exit, and he called the team back in the plane to request a go-around: "Wesley and Paul crawl back inside, and I am helping Tail Jacco back in by pulling his chest strap, making sure he is not falling off."

Four members of the team were safe by then, however, when Jacco Van Eerden looked back to check on videographer Grim Swinnen he saw him floating with one hand, no feet on the step anymore, with a large smile on his face: "Jacco starts signaling us that we really need to go before we lose our video. In the meantime I see HayaBusa and the girls looking at us with eyes wide open, trying to figure out what we are trying to prove..."

The story still came to a happy end with a perfect Thunder exit: "We all realized very quickly that we couldn't go around, took our positions and launched a perfect 12. It surely was not funny at the very moment, but afterwards we had some good laughs about it..."