Three parachute onto Mt. Everest drop zone

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GORAK SHEP, Nepal, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Three adventurers say they have successfully completed an extremely high-altitude skydive, jumping from 20,000 feet onto a spot near Mount Everest in Nepal.

Leo Dickinson, Ralph Mitchell and Ramesh Chandra Tripathi jumped Wednesday from an airplane onto a sandy plateau near the Sherpa village of Gorak Shep, which at an altitude of 16,945 feet, became the world's highest drop zone, The (London) Daily Telegraph reported.

"It was not just Everest. I could see the whole panorama of fantastic mountains and it was just amazing," Dickinson, 62, told the newspaper. "You have got the mountains rushing past you. I just didn't want it to end. I had a freefall for four seconds and in the next three minutes I was already landing."

Dickinson is a British documentary filmmaker who in 1991 became the first person to fly over Mount Everest in a hot air balloon.

"I have never heard anyone landing at that height so far," he told the Telegraph. "I will claim for world's highest parachute jump landing with Guinness World Records."