Basejumper.com - archive

This is sad and completely shocking for me but I just want to inform the community that we lost a jumper on Saturday in the Rocky Mountains here in Alberta. I am gutted and feel lost for so many reasons, as we all have likely felt in the passing of our close friends. I am going to make this brief.

Jump occurred on a Saturday around 4-6pm. Details still unclear as far as timing. It started raining hard at 1115 am for 3-4 hours. Another group that included myself, hiked out from a great base jump with great weather minimal winds earlier that morning. The winds remained calm most of the day under 5mph at most. The jumper who previously completed a solo jump that day on a new exit decided to hike again to a Jump that had been completed before by two jumpers a few years back, one who vowed he would never jump it again and one who later went missing a few mountains away.

The reason for the difficulty is a downhill exit requiring many steps with a small ledge at 300' which the previous jumpers missed by inches their first and only jump. It appears that the jumper did not clear the ledge and at this point that is all that matters.

Lessons Learned:
1./ Carry a Spot Beacon Transmitter at all times to avoid a 3 day Search by your loved ones. If you jump with in the Alberta Mountain Area this will be a pre-requisite for all jumpers who want to choose to jump this area. The Park officials have made this Fairly Clear to us in this search and the one prior which lasted a month and is still unresolved. Also, if you are with me - no radio equals no jump with me EVER.

2./ Even if you are sure you can do it alone, maybe text a friend and tell them your intended jump and flight Path.

3./ If a jump is super sketchy ... maybe think about what you want out of your life and the people's lives you touch. Basejumping is supposed to be fun, it is possible be done safely and with longevity if you make choices that make sense. There are a few older jumpers that show that you can enjoy a longer career. You cannot avoid black death but you should also not hand black death low hanging fruit.

There are a lot more lessons personal in nature but I think this is about all that is required. You can PM me if you want more details and name. The Jumper is Local. His Wife, Mother, and Sister watched the search and a few of you may have met his mom in Norway a few years back.

Kris

P.S. There is no need to Flame the Obvious with this guy, this jumper knew exactly what he wanted out of Basejumping and followed that to the tee. He was super experienced and in my mind one of the best we had around here. But he was a pioneer and a pioneering spirit is what drove his choices and so here we are. Younger jumpers should understand those differences when reading this incident.

The problem is the wind can be calm at exit point but with precipitation there can be an overall air mass sink that isn't discernible.

Also airfoils aren't efficient when wet. A sail plane's flight efficiency can drop from 40:1 to 30:1. I'm not sure if that 20%+ difference would translate in a WS flight but on a short start where your buddies just barely got away with it in good conditions would you take the chance?

I really think we would benefit from more general aviation and weather knowledge.

BSBD my friend

Concurred. As a private pilot, I have to take density altitude into consideration very often - especially in the summer time. An airfoil loses performance (lift capability) as the temperature increases. I almost never hear BASE jumpers discuss density altitude as part of their pre-jump flight planning.

I wish there was empirical data available for a lot of these WS fatalities. I'd argue that there would be direct correlation between increased temps and fatalities.

I'm sure more than a few fatalities had a line flown when the air was cool, and flown again later when it was warmer. The amount of effort that was needed on the first flight was mirrored on the warmer, but given the reduction in air density, there was a significant loss of lift/thrust.

2 cents.

Very sad. Another Calgary resident died the night before in the same area after a fall while climbing.

I think this is a great point to make here and probably something that deserves more discussion. The lift from the exact same wingsuit/exit can vary so much in different conditions and it was Pointed out to me that when this specific jump was first made it was sunny on the face and the thermals etc may have improved the lift forces that made for the difference in clearing the ledge. It would be interesting to hear from Jumpers who have gathered data from the Flysight and logged the weather the same while jumping the same suit/exit and different conditions to see if anything stands out for obvious conclusions with some metrics.

I'm sure you could pull up the data based on date and time, and to account for seasonal changes in jumping just make everything site specific then compare to average temp for that time of year in that location. You could turn it into a + or - average temp binomial distribution. Then go from there if it was significant.