Richard Greenwood leapt out of an aircraft into the open sky and carved his name straight into the history books. At 74 years and 136 days old, the Albuquerque native officially became the oldest person to fly in a wingsuit, Guinness World Records confirmed. The jump took place on June 5, stripping the world title from Robert Felt, who had claimed the crown just weeks earlier at 72 years and 64 days.
Greenwood pulled off the dive after years of severe medical adversity. He refused to quit. Instead, the 74-year-old staged one of the most stubborn comebacks in extreme aviation.
His path back to the clouds seemed impossible less than a decade ago. In 2016, double knee replacement surgery forced Greenwood to hang up his skydiving rig. Immobility took a heavy toll. He gained weight, struggled with joint pain, and soon received a cancer diagnosis that completely halted his aerial ambitions.
He fought back methodically. Seeking specialized treatment at the Mayo Clinic, Greenwood beat the disease into remission. Yet clearing cancer left another massive hurdle — his body remained too heavy for safe wingsuit maneuvers. Greenwood committed to a strict physical regimen, shedding 80 pounds (36 kilograms) to meet dropzone requirements. By 2023, he cleared medical hurdles and resumed jumping.
Flying was never a late-life whim for Greenwood. As a five-year-old boy in New Mexico, he climbed onto his family garage roof to test homemade parachutes crafted from tissue paper, string, and tape. He enrolled in formal skydiving lessons at 18, earned his civilian jump licence, and spent the next half-century collecting top-tier aviation credentials.
He was an aerospace engineer. He earned a master's degree in aviation safety, collected commercial pilot wings, secured aircraft mechanics certifications, and qualified as an expert parachute rigger. Before retiring in 2018, Greenwood served as a lead aircraft accident investigator for the US Air Force. When modern wingsuits hit the commercial market during the mid-1990s, he jumped at the technology, buying his first suit in 1997.
Greenwood began mapping his record run after reading an article in Parachutist Magazine highlighting Thomas Conner, who completed a certified jump at 67. Recognizing that his own logged hours surpassed existing marks, Greenwood coordinated the necessary flight logs, camera verifications, and witness filings with Guinness adjudicators. He described the record-breaking plunge with dry cockpit precision — calling it another routine jump that simply required an extraordinary mountain of paperwork.