On September 8, 1974, Evel Knievel, the greatest daredevil stuntman in history, the man who became a hero to school boys when he damn near killed himself jumping the Caesars Palace fountains on New Years’ Eve 1967, the man who jumped a world record 19 cars on a Harley-Davidson in February 1971, who inspired the immensely popular Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle toy, and was once an entrant into the Guinness World Records for the most broken bones in one lifetime, added another legendary jump to his list of Evel deeds…

He would attempt to jump Snake River Canyon in Idaho, some 1700 feet (518m) wide and 500 feet (152m) deep, not quite Evel’s unrealised grand dream of jumping the Grand Canyon, but it would easily be his grandest and most dangerous attempt yet, but this time it wouldn’t be on a Harley Davidson, it would be on a machine dubbed the Skycycle X-2, a steam powered rocket designed by Douglas Malewicki and built by Robert Truax.

All told, the X-2 was built from a discarded fuel tank with a seat from an old go-cart, so it was easily the safest vehicle that Knievel had ever used for a stunt, and on top of that, Knievel, one of the great self-promoters of human history, had the event produced and shown live on CCTV and in cinemas around the United States, one of the investors & promoters was a young Vince McMahon, Knievel flew to the launch site on a helicopter, and the Hell’s Angels were pretty much the security after the National Guard said no.

So eventually September 8 arrived, the very same day President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his involvement in Watergate, and that afternoon with a crowd of 15,000 watching on, among them Evel’s then-wife Linda, their three children, his parents and grandmother, all there in case Evel finally attempted a jump even he couldn’t survive…

The audacious attempt ended in spectacular failure as the emergency parachute deployed right as the X-2 left the launch ramp, resulting in significant drag, and eventually the machine lost altitude and spiralled into the rocks on the river’s edge, leaving him with nothing more than a broken nose and cuts.

Once again, Knievel had cheated death, as he remained strapped to the X-2 thanks to a harness malfunction that would’ve almost certainly left him to drown had it landed a few feet shorter and into Snake River itself.

The parachute failure was viewed as a design flaw, with Truax accepting the blame after some arguments with Knievel, but some fans have claimed that Evel got nervous and pulled the latch early, as if he knew he wouldn’t make it and that the whole Snake River attempt had been a big PR stunt…

Which was basically everything Evel did in the first place, so it doesn’t stack up.

So despite surviving yet another stunt, Snake River Canyon was the beginning of the end for Knievel, as it was his last jump for 8 months, not returning until May 26, 1975 when he broke his pelvis attempting to jump over 13 single-decker buses at Wembley Stadium in London, with 90,000 people watching the only jump Knievel ever attempted outside of North America, he then had his longest successful jump over 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in October ’75:

Then in January 1977, Knievel broke both arms when he crashed into a cameraman while preparing to jump a tank full of sharks in Chicago, several months before The Fonz jumped the shark on Happy Days…

Then in September of 1977, Knievel flew to California and attacked his former promoter Shelly Saltman (Who promoted the Snake River jump) with an aluminum baseball bat after an unfavourable portrayal in Saltman’s book Evel Knievel on Tour, resulting in Knievel serving six months in jail and losing his endorsements with Ideal Toys and Harley Davidson, pretty much ending his stunt career as he became bankrupt within 4 years.

As a post-script to all of this, in September 2016, stuntman Eddie Braun, with support from Evel’s son Robbie, jumped Snake River Canyon in a replica Skycycle X-2, attempting to prove that Knievel could’ve been successful without the parachute malfunctioning, and he was proven correct: