Troy Widgery was lucky to escape with his life in 1993, when a plane he was on crashed on takeoff. He was one of just six survivors.
Troy Widgery had been a passionate skydiver since he was a teenager and he was good: on that fateful day, the plane was taking up a team of who were headed for the U.S. Skydiving Championships. Troy Widgery and eighteen other skydivers were training at Perris Valley Skydiving in Southern California that day, when one of the engines on the jump plane failed, and the aircraft went crashing to the ground
“It was bad fuel,” Troy Widgery recalls. “The pilot feathered the wrong engine…down-wind take off…and so we were probably three hundred feet up when the plane nosedived in. I remained conscious for the most part…other than right at impact. They estimate that we hit at six G’s of force. There were twenty-two people on the plane, and sixteen people died; six of us lived.”
Such a harrowing experience might deter other people, but Troy Widgery has always had a passion for extreme events. Today the Denver, Colorado native is the CEO of Go Fast Sports and Beverage Company whose most remarkable product to date is the Go Fast Jet Pack. Troy Widgery says he was thrilled by the idea of a jetpack and everything it represented ever since he saw the James Bond movie Thunderball as a child. “Ever since I saw that movie, I wanted a Jet Pack,” he says today.
The Go Fast Jet Pack has yet to make it to the consumer market. But it has already set world records for speed and altitude, and has even been piloted over the Royal Gorge in Colorado. Troy Widgery is kept very busy with Go Fast Sports and Beverage Company, and doesn’t have much free time these days. But when he does, he enjoys extreme events like BASE jumping, snowboarding, and – in spite of the 1993 tragedy – skydiving.
Troy Widgery 