Surfer Nathan Fletcher details how he jumped out of a helicopter onto a wave and his close encounters with death

A 20 foot wave, $10 million insurance policy and a helicopter. Big wave surfer Nathan Fletcher has spent his career dicing with death. Read about his groundbreaking stunt and his close encounters with death here.

BIG wave surfer Nathan Fletcher has spent his career dicing with death.

So it came as no surprise to those around him that jumping out of helicopter onto a 20 foot wave off the coast of Hawaii would be a childhood dream come true.

“It’s something I thought about for 15 to 20 years at least,” Fletcher said of a stunt that provided the perfect ending to the film Heavy Water, set to be screened around the Australia from June 26.

“I never thought it would actually happen.

“There are so many moving parts and it was so out of my control. It was actually raining and blew out, totally different conditions to what you would want.

“I could never have forecasted that.

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“I was really nervous but I never thought about the tail rotor. I was originally worried about the downdraft and how strong the wind would go down while I’m on the side of the helicopter with a surfboard.

“But the tail rotor would go in our track if the helicopter pilot didn’t pull up and away when I jumped, it would be catastrophic and you don’t have any radios.”

It was a stunt inspired by his good friend Danny Way, who famously jumped out of a helicopter into a half-pipe with a skateboard in 1997.

The stunt was considered so dangerous Fletcher and filmmaker Michael Oblowitz struggled to find a pilot willing to do it in a mecca for big wave surfing.

“Everyone else in Hawaii was terrified we were going to kill someone, they didn’t think we could do it,” Oblowitz said.

Pictured on Coolangatta Beach, Nathan Fletcher (on right) the most influential big wave surfer in the world and he has ridden what is thought to be the heaviest wave ever ridden, with film Director Michael Oblowitz (on Left). Picture: Mike Batterham

“The insurance policy alone cost like $20,000 a day. It was like a $10 million dollar policy.”

It took seven hours and as many attempts for the 44-year-old from Hawaii to pull off the groundbreaking stunt.

“It wasn’t what your ego would want to see but it just got done,” Fletcher said.

“No matter what, it felt like a big burden was off my back.”

Fletcher, who first came to Australia in 1982 for a surfing competition at Burleigh Heads, is credited with riding what is believed to be the heaviest wave ever and is now the first person to complete the “acid drop”.

The move was success, but Fletcher said there had been multiple times in his career where he feared he was about to die.

Not afraid to take it to the limit, Nathan Fletcher jumps out of a helicopter to catch Hawaiian waves. Please credit photo to Hank Foto

“The most dramatic wave I have caught was at Teahupo’o, Tahiti, Fletcher said.

“I didn’t make it. It was the heaviest, meaning the most consequential, meaning the most shallow and the most velocity pouring into one spot.

“Then in Chile (South America) I went through the rocks and pretty much drowned.

“I didn’t have to get CPR but I went somewhere else. I hit my head and broke my ribs so I was kind of unconscious and didn’t really know what was going on.

“My wife was pregnant at the time so I could see my life and my kid.

“That was the closest to dying I have been.”