Basejumper.com - archive

 
Missing Wingsuiter, Washington State

This jump originated from a helicopter, so it's not technically a BASE jump, but it was an apparent terrain flight, so the lesson is the same:

It's time for terrain flyers to start wearing Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) as a standard part of their equipment.

I know this subject has been discussed periodically, but AFAIK there has been no largescale adoption of PLBs and there should be, given the increasing number of people not just proxy flying near large cliffs but negotiationg miles of mountain terrain at low altitude where it's impossible to know where they are if they go down.

Yes, usually if they go down unplanned it's fatal, but sometimes it won't be if help can arrive soon enough-- and knowing where the body is also makes for faster, cheaper cleanup with less effort by and risk to recovery crews.

It took backcountry skiers a long time to adopt avalanche beacons, but now most everyone who skis the backcountry does wear one because they do make a difference.
Avalanche beacons are a possible solution for jumpers, but their limited range (20-80 meters) probably makes them ineffective for terrain flying use.

A better choice of course, is SPOT, which has a "track progress" feature that allows friends and family to follow your progress in real time. Once activated, SPOT acquires and sends your GPS coordinates to your SPOT account every 10 minutes. Anyone with access to your account information can log on and view your route, complete with virtual views provided by Google Maps.

There are also many other "personal locator beacons" on the market with differing capabilities.

Here is a general discussion; here is a review of one specific model.

As terrain flying gets more common and frequent, the chances of missing jumpers increases and, as the story above shows, it's manpower intensive and very expensive to search for a downed jumper. To establish and then maintain ourselves as responsible backcountry recreationists, I think it's important that everyone flying terrain do their part in this regard and "PLB up."

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looks like the search has been called off, they may send a chopper up when the weather gets better, but no more ground search.

Good post, worth thinking about.

The jumpers cell phone has been used in the past to triangulate their location. Many modern smart phones also have online tracking features.

ACR is another brand of PLB. Haven't used one, but they look like they make up for some shortcomings of the Spot. Not saying it's any better, so don't get your knickers in a knot, just throwing it out there if you're looking for a PLB.

http://www.acrartex.com/

 a swift rescue may have a different outcome than a slow or abandoned one. Good post Robin.

More importantly:
It is important to NOT crash when flying a wingsuit. When skiing there are zones deemed "no fall zones" we should consider anywhere we go in a wingsuit a no fall zone. It just is not OK to crash. Be mindful out there people!

The ACR looks great, seems that it will do the same job in an emergency and no 99 dollar yearly fee either, sounds good to me.

 In back country ski/snomo-shred world.... the spots are a huge disappointment. There have been many incidents of people sitting stranded for hours to days as the acquisition using the private satellite is questionable. The ACR is the standard for marine , and rescue work . They work on the GOV search and rescue sat system, and they immediately contact the area search and rescue coordination center for the country you are requiring assistance in.
I only wish that 4-5 years ago they weren't 750$ us. They are way more reasonable now , and available with most of the callback features and subscription service that the spot sports.
Personally..... that's a piece of equipment that has to work each and every time in as fast a manner as possible..... kinda like a pilotchute .... something I choose to not cheapo out on.

P.S. try being stuck in the middle of no-where with a broken down sled, -20 to -40, and having exhausted all means of self evacuation. Sitting around for a few days doesn't really work.

I don't normally post here, just lurk, but had a thought on this.

I just got a new iPhone upgrade and one of the options is for a 'locate my phone' in the event that it gets lost or stolen. Most of us these days have some form of smart phone so is there any benefit in taking this line of thought forward and using the smart phone as a way of locating lost jumpers - via an App or otherwise.

Just a thought.

this incident seems to be a failure of numerous people's analysis of their own experience and skills, from what I've heard.

Wingsuiting has progressed a long way in an incredibly short amount of time. A lot of knowledge has been learned by a very small group of people through gradual progression in an EXTREMELY dangerous environment.

This whole thing was sadly, very preventable

One thing to remember is when you are proximity flying a cliff... you have climbed the mountain, felt the wind at different altitudes, and then decided that jumping from the cliff was reasonable. When you jump from a helo, you have no clue what the true winds are doing on the mountain, high or low on the mountain itself... The winds that day were blowing pretty good. Just saying, when you add another component, things get tricky no matter what your skill level is.. Add one new thing at a time rule works well.

I think avalanche beacons could actually help, but it depends on various factors.
Many helicopters in mountainous regions are equipped with external detection devices, so they could actually fly the aproximate line and the approx.80m could be quite helpful.
Of course, in order to work there must neccessarily be the information that the jumper was wearing a beacon and a rough trajectory has to be known.
This could also be quite a cheap solution, considering there are training beacons which can only send but not receive.
Personally i think the smartphone solution as well as the satellite based concept have there weak points, most of all the depend on reception, which in the mountains can be quite an issue, even more so if we talk about canyons and rock faces.
Thus an independent transmission device, which is already introduced seems the best solution to me.
My condolences to everyone who knew the jumper

Avalanche beacons = avg. 60m range = fail

However, I think I agree with what you are getting at.
I think you may be talking about the directional reflector systems like Recco. I've seen them in action and they work if you have a general search area. But if not, they will do nothing. A 9 mile radius is not a general search area, its a crapshoot.

yes, you are right, given a search with another beacon and being covered by snow the range is much closer to 25m by my experience.
BUT: this is not neccessarily true for the helicopter-mounted detection device without snow cover. I assume it wouldn't be a big task to multiply the strengh of the signal, because long battery life isn't the biggest concern for wingsuit flights.
I actually plan talking to some people about how difficult it would be to adapt a training beacon (without reception) to send a stronger signal.

Nice to see the way you're thinking about this, adzurdo.

Another thing comes to mind, too: The limited range of current beacons is due in part to the fact that most of the receivers are on the ground and dealing with terrain interference, whereas a helicopter would be overhead and thus the signal might travel further.

What I'd really like to see, though, is someone look into using private airplane ELTs for jumper use. They have a much more powerful signal and with just a 1-minute search I found one that costs about $500 that only weighs two pounds, battery included. They activate when they come to a sudden stop at faster than 3.5-4.5 feet per second.

They are self-contained, and the nice thing is, unlike all the SPOT/cellphone and associated personal locator beacons (PLBs), the ELT doesn't do anything until you crash, then it transmits continuously on a frequency that essentially all SAR aircraft have and which is specifically designed to be picked up by search aircraft traveling both directly overhead at an angle from the search target.

Neither does it need cell phone or other reception; it just starts transmitting after impact until the batteries run out, and, in most cases, the crash site has been located by then.

Given the low weight, small size and reasonable cost of these units (another quick check showed units priced on eBay as low as $50), I think this is the way to go.

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I know nothing about this nor have I used it. Just something I found on the web. Mounts on a helmet and when it senses impact it sends your info to your emergency contacts: https://icedot.org/crash

This looks like great idea and cheap.

I am only guessing here but it sounds like you need to have mobile phone reception for it to work?

Looks like reception is needed which is a major shortfall for most backcountry adventuring. Would be cool if spot (or others) came up with an aftermarket helmet device that connects with a satellite.

was this guy ever found?

No

Recco system for avalance clothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECCO

Hi Paul,
unfortunately for our use... Recco is pretty much useless. I've seen a demonstration where the patrol-er who even knew where the recco tab was buried couldn't locate it.
They are pretty much a gimick to help sell ski clothes that is "find-able" in an avalanche. I think that the reality is that an epurb is the only reliable option out there for alerting and finding a downed body-pilot.... and thats only if he or she is conscious to fire it off.
See you this summer in the land of the Nord-Wands!!

Jay

 
I've been doing recovery systems for these suborbital rockets. The nose cone and ballute/drogue separate at main deployment. In the nose cone we have a system with a GPS that transmits on a radio on a... cb/ham frequency. Sorry I don't know much about it. We activate it when the nose cone fires. We get data from it at appegy. So we are receaving from it from over 300,000 ft. It is picked up from repeaters on the ground and retransmitted. These repeaters are often found on mountain tops and ridges. As an example were we launch from is at the but end of no where in the new mexico desert I don't get cell out there. So you get cb quality range for direct transmition and you can get if by repeater from way far away. As an example we had a release failure at about 200,000 ft. We chased the drifting nose cone down from an unplanned 200,000 foot release with this system. The one we are using is just a little bread board. About two by three inches. I don't think it weighs a pound. There are more inclosed compact systems out there. You get GPS data, angles and directions on a standard radio. Sorry I don't recall what the systems are called.

Lee

In my past work with SAR and getting my Avvy2 I saw RECCO work like magic for recovery efforts. The only problem is you need to know the isolated search area. Mt. Si is a huge woodland/mountainous area and nobody knows where to look or if he even had reflectors on. So launching a bird with what could be a pointless technology on board is expensive and unrealistic.

I knew the missing jumper personally, we jumped together all the time at our home dz in FL. He was a moderately skilled wingsuiter, with an eye on progressing to WSBASE down the road. He bought a baser on his own, and I'm sure that's what he was wearing with his brown tonysuit when he went in. He didnt tell anyone from the DZ he was going on this trip, nor did I know the crew who took him along. Obviously not the brightest idea to take someone with ZERO basejumps on a proxy-flying expedition, skydiving or not, so a big middle finger to whomever that was.. Kurt had no business being in that envoronment, and that bad decision cost him his life.
Had he told me of his intentions I could have saved him with some simple advice, (never fly at 100percent!) but unfortunately thats not how it played out.