Trying to keep it short: I sold my first DSLR (Rebel XT) to my buddy from Florida who happens to be a skydive instructor. He used it mounted on his helmet to shoot skydivers in a free fall. The mounting plate detached when he opened his chute and both cameras (photo + video) took a fall from approximately 3000 ft. Amazingly, the Rebel survived the fall and my friend is still using it to this very day. It has a crack in the plastic body and the kit lens is a little jerky when zooming, but functional. I'd like to know if there is a similar story or something close to this but I doubt. It might me a world record indeed (for the height of a camera drop which survived). Kudos to canon!
PS: New development of the story: it seems that we might be lucky and get to see the video scene too. The guy has the tape somewhere in his files, you can see the moment when it got detached from the helmet and the free fall all the way down to the moment it hit the ground and got smashed. The cameras got separated when he opened the parachute, there was nothing to soften the impact for the Rebel. Estimated velocity: 100-110 mph. Ground was pretty soft but even so, the impact was massive.
PS. I'm surprised to see the interest my post generated. It got covered by CNET, Endgadget, Canon Rumors and others. For the non believers claiming that it is impossible to jump with a camera attached on a helmet, watch these videos:
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