Times Square stunt: Thousands watch Lijana and Nik Wallenda complete 25-storey high wire walk

Feat comes two years after near-fatal accident

Acrobat Nik Wallenda and his sister Lijana Wallenda have successfully completed a 1,300-foot walk on a high wire 25 stories above Times Square.

The siblings began their walk a little after 9pm ET. Thousands of spectators had gathered to watch them from below, and the stunt was also streamed live during an ad-free segment on ABC.

Lijana Wallenda was joining her brother on the wire for the first time since a near-fatal accident in 2017, when an eight-person pyramid toppled during a rehearsal.

Each started their respective walks from opposite ends of the wire suspended between the Times Square towers.

The duo crossed each other in the middle, with Lijana Wallenda sitting on the wire to let her brother step over her. Both then continued to the opposite side.

The two were wearing tethered safety harnesses required by the city in case they fell, and they held on to balancing poles.

While Nik Wallenda appeared stone-faced throughout the entire walk, exchanging words of reassurance with Lijana via a microphone, helater said he “freaked” out when his pole slipped as he was crossing over his sister.

Both siblings were speaking on Monday on ABC’s Good Morning America, just hours after their harrowing feat.

“My pole started to slide down,” Nik Wallenda said, adding that he briefly lost his grip. “It freaked me out for a second.”

Lijana Wallenda conceded that she felt “a little shaky in the legs” for the first 20 feet.

But “it becomes home,” she said. “This is what I’ve done my whole life. ... It’s peaceful.”

Lijana Wallenda said she could have quit wire walking after her traumatic fall but “I wouldn’t let that fear consume me”. Her brother said she was ”living proof” that anybody can step out of their comfort zone and overcome their own fears.

After conquering Times Square, Nik Wallenda says he’s got his eye on an “active volcano”. Right after Lijana completed her walk on Sunday, bringing their stunt to an end, Nik Wallenda held her in a tight hug and told her he had found a volcano for his future feat.

The Wallenda family has been a star tightrope-walking troupe for generations, tracing their roots to 1780 in Austria-Hungary, when their ancestors travelled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers, and trapeze artists. They never use nets in live shows or in rehearsals.

In 1978, 73-year-old Karl Wallenda fell to his death from a high wire strung between two buildings in Puerto Rico. In 1962, Karl Wallenda’s nephew and son-in-law died, and his son was paralysed, after a seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance. Lijana Wallenda’s fall happened during an attempt to break a Guinness world record with an eight-person pyramid.

Nik Wallenda’s high-wire walks above Niagara Falls, the Chicago skyline, and the Little Colorado River Gorge near Grand Canyon National Park were broadcast on national television.

Additional reporting by agencies