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Would anyone have any news of an Indian base jumper Scharyf, who went base jumping in Norway?

He was skydiving in Spain in early July and after that went to Kjerag in Norway for base jumping in late July.

He was supposed to be back on 19th Aug and updated on Facebook on 16th Aug that he was almost done with his holiday and off for a last not so safe jump.

On 18th Aug, some friends and family of Scharyf's got a message from a person who was base jumping with him saying that they were jumping off some illegal location and that Scharyf and another fellow were in a serious accident. The officials and police were not informed because it was an illegal jump and these guys were searching the river for him.

That was the last we heard about him. There has been no news after that and the embassy has been informed and was searching for him.

If anyone has any information, could he/she share it here or on a personal email to adroy7@gmail.com.

Thank you.

 

The last thing anyone should be afraid of in Norway, is calling rescue and police. Good rule is if you loose track of your buddy, call rescue and inform whats going on, and the situation.

Police have an policy to not go after jumpers who have reported an accident. Jumping an illegal cliff, is not a serious crime in Norway, so if you clear your gear, and keep your story to being a witness, they will not ask further question, or prosecute you. However they will call you in for a statement, sign papers, and that you have to do. If you can jump off a cliff with mates, you can do this for your mates family and friends.

You can just imagine their pain and hunger for some information at the moment.

 

I would post this on fb if I was you, It might be a better channel to find out who he travelled with, and finely some valid information.

Exactly, thats why its important to know where you jumping, and what you have to face if shit goes to shit.

Did not mean to hijack the tread here, just wanted to give som information about how things work in Norway, and how to deal with incidents. Hopefully someone read this, and remember. It happend before, jumpers run the scene, and leave a dead friend behind, because they are afraid of police.

I'll throw your request up on the Edge magazine Facebook page and see if anyone knows anything about him. Who was he jumping with (if you're comfortable saying) and is the other jumper OK?

if anyone finds something out please post on the board or pm me. I have a friend (non basejumper) who is trying to find out what happened to him for the family.

Do we have a last name or are there any more details about it?

Once again, this incident needs to be a serious wakeup call for wingsuit pilots to start regarding personal locator beacons (PLBs) as equally important to their jump as their rig and their wingsuit. PERIOD.

The wingsuit BASE community simply must stop looking at PLBs as optional because the cost of not wearing them is unjustifiably high not just for the friends and family of the missing but of the rescue teams faced with the near impossibility of finding a downed wingsuiter along so many of the routes.

The dramatically shrinking cost and size of various PLBs, coupled with the increasing numbers of wingsuiters overflying ever more rugged and remote terrain, means there is no longer any moral or ethical excuse to NOT wear a PLB.

This "conversion" took many years to occur in the backcountry community with regard to avalanches, but now almost every backcountry skier/snowshoer/snowmobiler has one, and they routinely make rescues more likely and body recoveries less difficult.

No more excuses on this, people. Time to become more responsible backcountry athletes.


44

So I checked up on the Facebook page of Stavanager Base Klubb as well. They have already heard about it. They also received an official query from the embassy:


Dear Mr. Stein Edvardsen,
Many thanks for returning our call. As discussed
on phone, I would like to convey that an Indian
Army officer, Major Sharyfsinh Titwekar Bhonsle
has gone missing while on private vacation in
Norway. His Indian passport number is G
8620998 issued at Pune, India, on 06 May
2008. His photograph is attached.
According to his parents, Major Bonsle had left
India for Paris on 01 July and thereafter for
Spain to participate in a Sky-Diving Festival.
Through his Facebook updates, it appears that
he had then left for Norway. Reportedly Mr.
Bhonsle spent around a week (18-27 July) in
Lysebotn for some BASE jumping activity, and
that around 21 August, he was possibly
involved in a BASE jump accident in the area of
Romsdal in the North West of Norway.
We are trying to ascertain the whereabouts of
Major Bonsle, and solicit your cooperation and
help in the matter. We would much appreciate
any feedback in the case, through your network.
We eagerly look forward to hearing from you
soon.
With best regards,
k.n. chari
Head of Chancery
Embassy of India
Oslo
Mob.9501-3915
Office: 2411-5926


An instructor there replied with :

"I got word a few weeks back that he was staying
with a friend/s in Munich? but that could also just
be a rumour. I do know that he left here in one
piece and seemed ok."



Did anyone jump with him after Kjerag between 27 Jul and 16 Aug even? They may have some idea where he was heading to and where he last stayed. At the moment we have no contact with anyone who met him after he left Lysebotn on 27 Jul. Even the message that was received on the 18th Aug was from an anonymous person whose number is not reachable now.

Picture from Facebook

Latest post was August 15th https://www.facebook.com/sharyf.bhonsle?fref=ts

What kind of asshole would not call for help after getting involved in an accident? That's a crime itself and makes me think about the need to carefully choose my jumping buddies. I hope they think in his familiy and finally shed some light on the search.

Answer to your question. Dead people generally dont call. Unconscious peeps also. People in shock generally dont even know what day it is much less to call for help. Maybe I misunderstand your question.
choosing your jumping buddies is always cool. Assuming that they have confided in you how to be dealt with in death or injuries. If I lead a group. I have a contact number for who I shall contact for each jumper. long road trips etc.
But I am sure that know of no one who has left an injured jumper behind.
Tcs

The OP said that other jumpers were aware that he'd had an accident, couldn't find him and didn't call the authorities. If that is true, it kinda sucks.

If that is true, they are scumbags...

If someone finds out who they were, their names should be made public. I wouldn't want to jump with any of them or even share a exit point...its one thing to leave a dead buddy if the group talked about it before but they still should give information what exactly happened to help locate the body! Wtf is wrong with people, no honour, no respect,no ethics, no emphaty for the family of the deceased...

EDIT
One more thing, i just read the post again "Scharyf and another fellow were in a serious accident". Does it mean that there are TWO people missing????

I spent a lot of time tracking down leads in this case a few weeks ago.

This was a new and inexperienced jumper.

He had misstated his skydiving experience to get onto the FJC at Kjerag.

He did not own gear.

He had made a lot of statements to his roommate at Kjerag about wanting to leave his life, go AWOL (he was in the military), and disappear.

The anonymous "he went in" message was sent from his own (pre-paid, not traceable) telephone, which he had bought in Sweden.

No jumpers were with him after he left Kjerag, and no one saw him at any popular BASE sites.

It was my conclusion that in all likelihood there was not a BASE incident in this case.

Therefore, I am moving this thread to the General forum.

Damn that's a crazy way to start over. I guess he picked up one of those fake passports they used to spam the forums with.

Holly crap!
That almost feels like some bad movie :/ And just from my very limited time in skydiving I can say that he wouldn't be the first person to lie about his skydiving experience to do FJC at Kjerag :/ Maybe it's time to miss trust people a bit more considering the times we live in? Sure it would be pain in the ass to call the dropzone(s) where the potential FJC student comes from, at the same time it could save a lot of money/time/stress from Stavanger base clubb from a potential fatality...I know that all the dropzones I jumped at in last 2 years have all my jumps in their system, even if I would loose my log book they could still see 99% of my jumps in their computers...

This is very weird story....as I live in Sweden and the supposed "fatality" used Swedish phone number there might be a way to figure out where he was when he sent the sms/fb msg, feel free to send me more details if it could solve this mystery in any way, I will make sure to get the information to the right people. There is really no need for norwegian rescue forces to look for a body that does not exist :/
I would write this as a PM to you Tom, but i figured it's better that more people can see it public on the forum and hopefully help out solving this whole situation!
I REALLY hope there are no people searching for this guy in Norway for no reason :/

When I was working Kjerag, I watched 2 people die who lied about their exp level. This hurts a lot less than exp'd dieing. They also proved a lot about lying.
Tcs

Did they fudge their logbooks?

In 2010 SBK (Sparky) checked our logbooks.

Thanks for this, Tom, and this circumstantial evidence points strongly toward your conclusion.

On the other hand...

The same evidence gathering and discussion commenced at Perris a few years back where a Russian guy jumped alone at the end of the day, no one saw him land, no one saw him again, his car was left in the parking lot with his passport and other important personal belongings.

An extensive search was conducted over several days, including with helicopters IIRC. No trace.

So then started a lot of talk and there appeared a pile of fairly convincing circumstantial evidence pointing toward the same "disappear and start over" scenario... to include IIRC comments to friends about pondering such a scenario.

Several months later, a farmer plowing his field found the guy face down in the field exactly where the search had been concentrated, parachute unopened, obscured by weeds. Advanced decomposition made it impossible to determine cause of death, but it could have been a medical event (heart attack, stroke, et al) or just a no-pull for any of several reasons (IIRC he was not highly experienced either).

Bottom line: The "disappear and start over" scenario seemed not only plausible but likely in the Russian-at-Perris case, but it turned out that it was a simple case of no one seeing a body without a parachute plummet all the way into the ground, followed by a circumstantial circus.

So it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.


44

I was on the same course with Scharyf at kjerag. I think he lied his jumpnumber from 230 to somewhere around 260. I also know that hes been jumpin in ALOT of different DZ:s for real.

Do you really think that SBK should allways call and check the background of their students?

Scharyf did well at kjerag, he was jumping with me eight times. Only the first jump went head low, but after that he did well even with off headings. I think hes military background helped him alot cause he was hiking well (if you have been at kjerag, you know it plays a role in your jump performance) and i think he wasn't as scared to jump as we were.

I know he went to somewhere in europe after our kjerag times and was planning to come back to north. He was also planning to buy a rig.

All that said, i think he is/was a really good guy, so i hope hes gone AWOL.

He is a Commissioned Officer with Indian Army. Was the best athlete in his Military training batch, trained for special operations and was working as "Aide de Camp" for one of the Governors. No wonder he did well in his BASE course as well. With his kind of background he didn't have to lie about his jump numbers. I wish he is AWOL and not in any serious accident.

I was there jumping with him too and I think it's more likely that he's just under the radar somewhere. I think SBK has a good system going and there's no need to change it. How often do we see incidents on here from Kjerag compared to other sites? Plus at the end of the day, BASE jumping is about being a grown ass man and making your own decisions. Kjerag doesn't need to turn into Skydive the Fjord.