The "Saaho" movie jump is theoretically possible..!

Hi, How are you doing?

I think you remember a scene in the Saaho movie, where the hero jumps off the mountain cliff along with a parachute bag.

Of course, if the hero jumps along with the bag, there is no problem and no need for this post. But, the bag goes down before our hero, and still, he outruns the bag and catches it before reaching the ground!

Before we dive in, here is the scene for your reference.
(You can safely skip if you already watched/remembered it)

But how is it even possible to catch the bag theoretically? 

What do we think when we see an object falling?

The object gets accelerated because of the gravitational force. So the velocity increases as it goes down and finally hits the ground.

As per that logic, the bag and hero fall one after the other, so the former should hit the ground first and then the hero. Right? Not exactly, though.

It turns out that we are missing a concept called Terminal Velocity from our analysis!

What is a terminal velocity?

When a body falls, in addition to the gravity force, there is an upward force acting on the body - the force exerted by the air particles opposing the downward movement of the body.

This opposing force by the air particles is not constant (unlike the gravitational force, which is constant), but increases with the velocity of the body.

So, once the body starts falling freely, gravity dominates - the body has a net force downwards.

As the body moves down, its velocity increases - so do the upward force.

If given enough time, there will be a point during the fall where both upward and downward forces cancel out. After this point, the velocity of the body remains constant till it hits the ground. This constant velocity is called "Terminal Velocity."

A little more on the terminal velocity:

This terminal velocity, and the distance a body needs to travel to attain it, depends on the size and shape of the body.

On average, the terminal velocity for humans during free fall is about 200kmph, and they reach it once they continuously fall for 450 meters.
For an ant, it is 6.4kmph, and it reaches the value after travelling a couple of metres 

(this low terminal velocity is one of the reasons ants survive fall from greater heights)

We can also observe from the above points that if the terminal velocity is less, it means the body attains the velocity quickly. If the terminal velocity is more, the body needs more time (and has to travel more distance) to attain it.

Now, come back to our scenario:

First, the bag is dropped and it starts falling.

Next, our hero jumps off the cliff.

By the time the hero jumps, the bag's velocity is already increasing with time. But, the velocity cannot increase forever! It reaches its terminal velocity and continues to fall with the velocity.

Meanwhile, our hero's velocity increases and even crosses the terminal velocity of the bag.
(Because the size of the bag is less than that of a human, we can say the bag's terminal velocity is less than that of a human) 

So, the hero + bag falling from the cliff becomes a normal situation of two objects moving, where one is faster and the other is slower.

It means that our hero catching the parachute bag is as normal as a faster object outrunning a slower object!!

P.S. Thanks for reading! Feel free to mention your thoughts about the post and help us reach the 'Eternal Thing'..!