A British free climber posed as a workman to gain access to Dubai’s tallest crane – so he could dangle 1,280ft above the city.
Fearless Adam Lockwood, 21, put on a hard hat and scaled the structure, before clinging from the top with just one-hand, using only his upper-body strength to stop him from falling.
He carried out the death-defying stunt from the crane on top of the 77-storey residential skyscraper Il Primo, directly next to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.
Dizzying views of the city can be seen below him as he hangs from metal bars, covered in slippery grease, making it even more astonishing that he didn’t plunge to his death.
Adam said: "When I first looked at the footage, I was thinking to myself, ‘this is it, this is the most incredible thing I’ve done’.
"The fact I hung off the tallest crane in Dubai on the doorstep of the world's tallest building is something special and I feel like it was definitely worth the risk and legal consequences if I was caught.
"I put a hard hat on to blend in whilst walking past 100 workers and slipped out the back gate without being noticed.
"Climbing up the jib, I quickly realised the whole crane was covered in grease that I couldn’t even see, at first I thought it was dust from the desert but checking my hands it was grease, feet and hands slipping on everything I touched.
"I had four close calls whilst climbing up and coming down. I had a few close calls too.”
Nerve-wracking footage of the perilous stunt last week shows Adam hanging by his hands or legs high above Dubai’s busy streets.
But he seems completely unfazed by the risks he takes as he calmly moves around the crane without any restraints to prevent him falling.
Adam, from Manchester, said: "Hanging off things doesn’t feel like much, it feels surreal to be suspended that high with no safety, but like all my other hangs, my brain is blank, my heartbeat doesn’t go up, and it feels almost peaceful.
“It’s something I know I can do and that 99 per cent of the world can’t and never will do, so I feel obliged to use my ability and enjoy doing it in the process.
"I love seeing things from height, I love having my body suspended hundreds of meters in the sky, I love the challenges of infiltrating secure places to achieve these goals and it’s something that has kept me alive since I started, and I don’t think I can give it up.
“I slept for the whole day when I got back to my accommodation because I was so tired."
The crane climb is not the first time that Adam has performed a hair-raising stunt on an iconic world structure.
In April, he dangled from the 262ft San Siro stadium in Milan, and later scaled the famous glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris to take a cheeky selfie.
