Every day, we navigate our lives, often unaware of the origins of the tools and technologies that ensure our safety. Today, I want to talk about one of the most innovative inventions, the parachute. More specifically, we'll explore the story of the man who drew it up and the profound impact his creation had on aviation safety.
Stefan Banic was born in 1870 in Smolenice, Slovakia. There isn’t much on record about his life in Europe, but in 1907, he emigrated to the United States to build a life in a country that, at the time, promised prosperity and success. Banic settled in the state of Pennsylvania and took up work as a coal miner. Life as a coal miner was both demanding and dangerous. While the exact story of inspiration for the parachute is not documented, historians and writers assume that Banic, who witness a horrible plane crash in 1912 wanted to invent a safety measure that would save lives. Its safe to say that he jumped to this conclusion after experiencing how important even the smallest of inventions came into play in his dangerous coal mining profession. To allow individuals to escape a malfunctioning aircraft safely, he began mock-up designs, through research, that would eventually change aviation safety forever.
Banic envisioned that any device made would be worn on a person's body, preferably the chest or back and would be opened and ‘activated’ to help a person safely and slowly descend to the ground unharmed. His background in coal mining made him more informed than other inventors at the time because he knew all about what resources were available to him and how appropriate the materials were for his prototype. Banic’s awareness of the importance of safety measures likely influenced his determination to create a device that could save lives. This experience most likely is where the act of deployment of the parachute was heavily thought out because, as a coal miner, Banic saw the need for quick and effective emergency response in a situation like the tragic accident he first witnessed. In the testing process, the initial design of the parachute was its umbrella-like shape with a canopy above connected by rope or string. Something crazy to others at the time was Banic himself following through with his vision in 1913 and jumping off of a 15-story building to test the parachute and theory himself.
In 1914, Banic presented the parachute through a demonstration to the US Army. This test was a fantastic success and quickly earned a patent (US Patent Number 1,108,484). While today we don’t use the design drawn initially out and created by Banic for the historic patent testing, through innovation and technology, the parachute has been reworked to fit the changing safety standards and, most importantly, to change the evolution of parachute technology and aviation safety.
Stefan Banic’s legacy today is seen in small, intimate ways but is, in fact, still relevant. In 1997, the Stefan Banic Parachute Foundation was created with the purpose of skydivers celebrating and remembering the parachute inventor who made such an activity possible. As of the past few years, a little under 3 million people skydive worldwide, and it is only possible and done with such safety and security because of Banic and his brain. Most recently, in 2020, Slovakia featured the inventor on a collector 10 Euro coin. This collector's coin is currently worth anywhere between 30 USD and 70 USD, so there’s no telling what it could be decades from now if you by some chance have it in your collection. What remains most important is that inventor Stefan Banic is remembered and acknowledged for his influence on aviation safety and one of the greatest inventions, the parachute.
Written by Jacqueline Nicole Denson
Hochel, Martin. 2023. “Štefan Banič, The Slovak Inventor of the Parachute.” 3 Seas Europe. https://3seaseurope.com/parachute-slovak-inventor/.
“It was 45 years ago that Bill Newell, a California skydiver, created the Star Crest Recipient Awards program in honour.” n.d. Skydiving Museum. https://skydivingmuseum.org/sites/skydivingmuseum.org/files/newsletters/Spring-Su mmer-2012-Newsletter.pdf.
Slovák Banič získal pred Storočím Americký patent na padák ... Accessed August 15, 2024. https://www.webnoviny.sk/slovak-banic-ziskal-pred-storocim-americky-patent-na-padak/.
“WWI parachutes and Stefan Banic.” 2006. The Aerodrome. https://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25917.