Wigginton teams up for World Record in 42,017′ tandem skydive

On May 25, as many were just waking up for their holiday weekend, Jim Wigginton, a Van Buren Township resident, and Alex Coker of Memphis, Tennessee, were in Memphis making history.
The duo broke the Guinness World Record for the highest HALO tandem skydive, exiting the plane at an altitude of 42,017 feet (higher than most commercial airline flights) and high enough to watch the curvature of the earth for quite a while.
Temperature was -74 degrees; freefall time 2 minutes, 27 seconds; highest freefall speed nearly 300 mph. For comparison, most skydivers jump from 10,000-12,000 feet, with a temperature of about 36 degrees colder than ground level, freefall for 10-12 seconds, depending on when they deploy their parachutes, and reach a top speed of approximately 120 mph.
This makes 8 world records for Wigginton, a Vietnam-era Marine, who has been called the 7-mile man for being the only person to skydive from 37,000 ft. and also go to the deepest part of the earth (Challenger Deep) nearly 7 miles deep, in a submersible.
While most of his records are related to skydiving, he also holds other records, including the fastest time to climb or descend 1 million stairs.
While most of his records are in honor of Folds of Honor, a veteran-run charity (foldsofhonor.org) that has provided scholarships to over 53,000 families of fallen or disabled military and first responders over the last 17 years, as well as the Punya Thyroid Cancer Foundation at the University of Michigan (https://victors.us/thyroid), this jump was also made specifically to honor Thomas J. Noonan lll, whose tragic death on an identical jump, led to significant safety improvements that made this jump successful.