Fatality, Casale (Brento) 01.07.2016, Serbian
Sorry to have to add to the spate of disasters... Jumper exited solo, last of load of 5 from Casale near Brento in perfect weather conditions around midday. Equipment, a PF V3 purchased recently to fill the time gap waiting for his Freak. This was the last planned jump of this trip, and thus the last planned jump on this suit.
Jumper was highly experienced skydiver, 3500+, tandem and AFF, but only around 100 WS, almost all P3.
Jumper put only 2 skydives on the V3 before taking it to the mountain.
In previous days he did 12 BASE jumps, 11 from Brento, one yesterday from Casale, but straight out from exit.
Many of his Brento jumps were not very good, rather unsteady.
However two steady straight out jumps yesterday, one Brento and one Casale, gave him confidence....
Today he chose to exit and turn round to the left, taking him over the most flown line over some ridges, to then turn 180 right toward main landing in soccer field where other jumpers were waiting.
Jumper exited well, but shortly after making a gentle left turn he began to try to plane the suit out to stay above the terrain, rather than turning out towards safer ground.
Jumper pulled the suit progressively shallower, over a period of 10-15 seconds, until severe lateral instability set in and he was dropping out. He kept it flying this way for a bit longer, and then realised too late he was in deep shit.
Jumper pitched but impacted the last of the ridges before inflated canopy, dying on impact.
As he had option of going straight, and using alternative landing, other jumpers waited for him at soccer field as planned, after some time passed and he was unreachable by phone they went to alternative landing and called rescue after seeing no sign of him (approx 90 mins after jump).
Rescue located jumper quickly but he was dead at scene.
Jumper was wearing Rhino cam, footage clearly shows the above...
Writing this is tough after so much loss, seeing a lovely guy gone because he didn't take the time to really understand and control a suit feels like a totally avoidable loss, so many prior examples.
Please respect the sport and put in the time for a safe progression.
Mucho love monkeys...
