Basejumper.com - archive

Who knows what happened to Micah?

BFL reads:

It was a 3 way base jump near Voss at extreme week. After an uneventful jump, the other jumper saw micah attempt twice to pull his PC and impacted with nothing out.

More information will be available in the next few days.

In the tradition of this website I don't want to use names although this was a legal jump and the deceased's next of kin is now here in Voss.
In short there were three jumpers on the flight and one of them witnessed the impact. He is a highly respected individual in our sport and he held a gathering here last evening and explained the sequence of events leading up to the jump also witnessing the incident and so clearing the air on much speculation and I don't think it is my place to go into this description except to state the most basic fact.

It was a normal ( or actually a fantastically awesome, ) Wingsuit three way that ended up with up with a difficult pull that became a no pull.
The gear was inspected and it was an obvious no pull.
The suit (a C Race ) seems to have a mixed reputation for it's application in the BASE environment and perhaps it is noteworthy that the jumper had the stiffer arm foam in his suit.
He was extremely experienced in skydiving the suit and also current in the BASE environment.
It is very tragic to lose this talented young athlete and even more so, as he leaves behind a beautiful and pregnant young wife.
A fund is being set up for her benefit and when details become available I encourage the whole community to show their support.
My sincerest condolences, B.

I have split this thread into two because there are two incidents being discussed.

PLEASE USE THIS HALF OF THE THREAD TO DISCUSS THE FATAL INCIDENT.

The post beginning this thread (with the link to press report) is copied and pasted below:

Just asking: "He was extremely experienced in skydiving the suit and also current in the BASE environment."

Current with this particular suit in the BASE environment?

There's a recent promotional video by Squirrel that features the deceased flying that exact suit in MOAB in a demonstration as to what skill and equipment together can accomplish. When the manufacturer of a suit uses just how skilled you are at using it in a BASE environment for promotional purposes - not sure how much more current you can get than that with that equipment in that environment.

I had the following conversation with a friend this morning about this incident (and the rash of no-pull fatalities in this suit): "Remember when squirrel was the 'we make wingsuits that don't try to kill you' company?"

https://vimeo.com/64409540
Condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased...

I saw him jumping that suit in Stechelberg the first week of June. I believe he was on a continuous trip since then.

https://vimeo.com/217519079

I loved and respected Micah and in just the past couple of years I have spent some of the best moments of my entire life with him. Like many others, we had big plans for the near and distant future, from wingsuit projects to parenting wild kids and everything in between. He was one of the most talented, energetic, and genuinely good people I have known. Like many of you reading this, I am sick with grief. My heart goes out to Tom Erik and Matthias who were with him, I know from experience that is hard.
But most of all I am thinking of Micah's wife and his family - no one is hurting more than them and any pain we feel should be re-channeled into support for his family.

I designed all versions of the C-Race and I gave Micah this suit a few weeks before Aces last year. There is no question that the suit he chose to fly was a factor in his death. If you would like to blame the wingsuit, or me personally, then you can. In that case, you have your answer and there is no need to read any further. The following is based on my knowledge of the suit, my knowledge of Micah's history and experience with it, and an audio recording of Tom Erik's eyewitness briefing given the day after the accident.

Micah was jumping the 2016 ACES version of the C-RACE. This is the highest performance skydive C-RACE that we have made yet, and is designed to be skydived, not BASE jumped. He was not jumping the C-RACE BASE version (which, although it has larger inlets and lower internal pressure, is also a very technical suit which is designed for BASE races). The ACES (skydive) version of this suit has the highest internal pressure of any non-prototype suit we have made, to date.
His jump was in the evening, after his second significant hike of the day.
He was jumping a container design that is more than 10 years old and is, IMO, inappropriate for modern wingsuits (short container length, uncomfortable pull). Most of my colleagues would not jump a short container with this suit.

Micah's death was caused by a failure to deploy. The ACES version of the C-Race has enough internal pressure to where it is legitimately difficult to reach the BOC unless you reduce airspeed. While I personally have never missed a pull in three years of jumping similar designs, the technicality of the pull is on my mind during every flight and I would never intentionally begin my flare lower than 500 feet, which puts me higher for a deployment at the apex of the flare. Scotty Bob's stated "floor", for instance, is more like 800'. The lowest I have deployed in the C-Race was during the flare project in Moab, with Micah, and every jump had my full attention.

Micah called me from the exit point the first time he BASE jumped this wingsuit. He was somewhere in the mountains outside of Dubai, and was wondering if he was about to inadvertently commit suicide by BASE jumping the suit. On the phone, I told him flat-out that it was not the best idea in the world, but that if he had a forgiving start (the ACES suits are designed for skydive exits, not BASE exits) and he pulled very high, he would probably live. In subsequent months, I can only assume that he became more comfortable in this suit. After the Moab flare thing, we were talking about buzzing the lake near my house, flaring up, and deploying. But the plan was "slider off, 42" PC, water landing, inflatable life vest, boat, etc.". It seemed very clear to me that low pulls in this suit should be reserved for a carefully planned situation.

"High" is subjective, but I do not think that any wingsuit BASE jumper would consider 300 feet to be high. According to our friends who were with him in Norway the week previous, that is the altitude Micah had become comfortable with. In that altitude range - and even slightly above it, say 400 feet - there is no time to miss your PC. You only have time for one good flare, one clean BOC reach, and one good pitch. Pulling at that altitude requires everything to go perfectly, and that is not the way life always works, no matter how skilled, experienced, talented, or optimistic we are.

In my opinion this was the wrong suit for pulling low over the ground, the wrong container to go with it, and the wrong time and place to do it.

In case you have ever wondered why:
1. We warn people about leading edge structure.
2. We tell people to pull high.
3. We make a BASE-specific versions of wingsuits, and recommend that people jump without the leading edge structure either always or until they are dialed (nod to the Italian fatality who totally disregarded this very serious advice).
4. We stick to these guidelines ourselves - the people who design and test this equipment choose to fly it conservatively, and not because we want to set an example.
Then, this is why.

It pains me to think that this could have been prevented. I wish that I had been there to see his low pulls in the days previous, and I wish that if I had been, then I could have somehow changed his mind. I wish that he had just stuck to doing double back-flips in his Freak 2, which seems safer. Most of all, I wish that I could time travel. But anyone who thinks Micah wanted to fly a lower performance suit, or wanted to pull higher, or wanted things to be any less exciting, probably doesn't know Micah.

For me, this is a reminder that our sport fucking sucks sometimes. That no matter how much faith we have in our own abilities, faith doesn't work sometimes. That we have to take the risk more seriously than we think we do: flying a wingsuit is deceptively easy, but it gets hard quickly sometimes and the risk is ever-present. Skill, experience, talent, time in the sport, none of those things reduce the risk. They only partially mitigate it. The main factor is judgment.

I think we are approaching a point in wingsuits that is really interesting. The C-race has an incredibly rigid wing, especially when the performance foam is in place. This makes it one of the, if not the highest performing wingsuit in the world in glide/speed, but it does make collapsing the wing significantly more difficult due to the internal pressure of the wing.

Squirrel has repeatedly acknowledged exactly this, and warned people to both to skydive the shit out of the suit before you ever think about base jumping it, and that they absolutely dont recommend jumping the performance foam in the base environment.

There will always be a lot of people many people who want to be jumping the highest possible performing suit they can. I absolutely love the C-race, its probably the best wingsuit ive personally ever flown (to put that in perspective, I would have answered that a V3 was my favorite wingsuit of all time before that). That being said, I always agreed with the manufacterer that jumping with the performance foam is probably a bad idea, and I pulled higher than I normally would in previous suits because I knew it took more time and planning to properly execute a pull.

I think everyone who jumps a suit at the top end of the performance range assumes that theyre a pretty damn good pilot, some correctly, some not. I dont think anyone would argue that Micah was one of the best wingsuit pilots in the world, but that still didnt make him immune to the issues that can happen with this type of high performance suit in an environment when a delayed or missed pull can kill you.

I dont think this is a problem specific to the C-race, and I dont think this is a problem that is likely to go away as wingsuits continue to get potentially bigger, and with higher and higher performance. The margin in skydiving is much larger than the margin in base. 2 seconds is nothing at 4000 ft, and almost everything at 400. Ill miss you buddy.

(Edited to add, I was apparently writing my post as the exact same time as Matt, which shares almost the same sentiment. The C-race I jump is the exact same model as he describes)

 Our hearts go out to micahs family and all of our fellow flying friends impacted by such a terrible loss. He will be deeply missed both on the ground and in the beautiful sky he carved around in like Michelangelo laying paint to a fresh canvass.
A huge thanks to you Matt, Brendan, and Tom for making all of he known facts and info available.

Blue Skies M

Thanks for the detailed info.

I met Micah last year in Norway and in the very brief time I spent with him he came across as a really nice guy who was happy to help anyone and everyone around him.

BSBD

"I dont think this is a problem specific to the C-race"
Yes it s definitly a problem with this specific suit. I mean, of course the first factor was the choice of the guys to base it but still a problem to have a wingsuit with that "technical" opening.

Squirrel warned them? The only thing on the website is:
" You should be an expert wingsuit pilot with several years in the sport, and hundreds of flights in equivalent "big suit" designs." (The 2 guys had these requirement).

I don t see anywhere anything on this specific aspect on the pull. I have friends who fly it now who didn t expect that, coming from other squirrels suits (normal easy pull)and are not comfortable at pull time. (And they re experienced). But now if they still base it, it s their "problem"...

I don t Blame you Matt (or Squirrel) on the accident but now maybe it s time to communicate more on this aspect.
And if the cost of high end performance is "rigid" wings, maybe it s also time to evolve to something like wingtippouch. Simon is working for Squirrel, it shouldn t be that hard.

Sorry for your loss

+1
make it an Option...

I am absolutly chocked by what I just read.

"Micah's death was caused by a failure to deploy." No kitting ...

"Micah was jumping the 2016 ACES version of the C-RACE. This is the highest performance skydive C-RACE that we have made yet, and is designed to be skydived, not BASE jumped. He was not jumping the C-RACE BASE version (which, although it has larger inlets and lower internal pressure, is also a very technical suit which is designed for BASE races)." He told that this suit as enough "pressure" (it's not pressure but air-locks efficiency BTW) to make an emergency pull not possible, is it the C-RACE BASE ? If yes why selling it ?

"His jump was in the evening, after his second significant hike of the day." 45 minutes to 1 hour, fucking significant !!!!

"On the phone, I told him flat-out that it was not the best idea in the world, but that if he had a forgiving start (the ACES suits are designed for skydive exits, not BASE exits) and he pulled very high, he would probably live." Such a good advice ...

"It pains me to think that this could have been prevented." Me too, by just not selling wingsuit with a hard pitching, cut the fucking air-locks like others are doing.

BTW I totally blame the non reaction of Squirrel after the first death with this suit this year, which probably leads us to the second one.
Now I'm waiting for the third...

I must say that I am equally shocked to read your response (and alygators too - did your friends not skydive it?). We make our own choices in this sport. We will live - or die - with them.

Antoine, you promote your suits on a regular basis as a tracking suit that can fly from wingsuit exits and fly what for the most part is considered wingsuit lines! If I buy your suit and go kill myself in it, because I attempted a short start and couldn't out fly a ledge, are you to blame? No!

This petty bickering and blame game on an online forum is really beneath you guys...

We make the choice with the infos we have. Before these accidents i never hear squirrel talking about the hard pull. I was interested at some point by it, asked some info to Squirrel dealers and none of them told me about anything the pull. And go to the website and tell me where re the warnings... It s not that hard to wrote something like "with the leading edge and high internal pressure the pull become really hard, train in skydiving with aad".

My friends did skydive with it, yes. Some decided to stop using it in base, some not. At this point i m 100% agree with you, it ll be their fault now. But from what we can see with Micah accident, even people used to it and with many jumps on it can be in difficulties once

Your comparaison with Antoine stuff is irrelevant. We re not talking here about skills and people thinking to be as good as others and trying the same flights/ line but about a specific point on this suit which killed experimented guys.

Did you ever see me blaming any brand because people died in proxy flying or on an exit they should not be ?
Are we here talking not about a problem that is coming because of the suit not because of the skills ?
The question for me is, would he also had the same problem with any other suit ?

BTW in any case at least you can pitch with my suit.

I do think it is relevant, because in the end, it all comes down to choices made. That is the bottom line, imo.

Your car has ABS, Airbags, drive assist,...
It's not your choice, it's a choice manufacturers made for your safety, and you have to pay for it even if you don't want it.
Should be the same in our sport, basic safety should not be compromised, even if the customers want it.

If you can make a suit with more performance but with less safety as the previous version you should not make or sell it, even if customers want it.

Or just write in big that "you can have big issue for the pull" on the top of the suit page before the "we win this and that". People will think twice...

I do not agree, you should not sell it, that's it.
On all the new harnesses you could have detachable leg straps as they are on the chest strap on the Adrenalin ones. It's very easy to make and so much easier to put your harness+wingsuit on the shoulders and then close your leg straps.
But it's not possible ! Why ? Because some people are already forgetting their normal leg straps so you can imagine how many will forgot if is was possible to open them.
Harness manufacturer could put this in place, but they know there will be more accident with it. So would they be a bit responsible if they were doing it ? I think so.

I've removed some posts from this thread.

Please try to keep discussion about incidents (especially serious ones) at a reasonably adult level.

Thanks!

Antoine, I usually agree with you, but not there.
As soon as you acknowledge the fact that a gear is more difficult to use than it should be, and you even have the choice with another easier gear. it becomes your very own decision to use it or not.
I would agree on the fact that warnings would help, but only to prevent fatalities on the very first jumps, where you learn using your suit/rig. And during those jumps you should anyway increase your margins (skydiving or high openings if basejumping).

People are already capable of dying while skydiving with all the safety built-in. As a matter of fact, it can only be harder to prevent deaths while basjumping as most margins are drastically reduced.
If we follow your thought, manufacturers should stop making base gear, as basejumping is inherently more dangerous than skydiving.
it is your own choice to put a base rig on and jump of a cliff instead of an airplane, as it is your very own choice to put a more complicated suit and jump it, not anyone else's.

That being said, imo manufacturers also have the duty to innovate (at least try) with safety in mind. It's been a while since the Wioletta pouch is around, and it could be an answer to these kind of fatalities (as alygator said already) and I'd be happy to have the opportunity to pay more and get the pouch as an option out of the factory.

 

Anyone jumping high profile skydive canopies and skydiving rigs anymore in base? The answer give it self, you just dont do that, and the same should go for wingsuits. Cant blaim anyone for his choice to push his limits on equipment.

that was exactly what i thought... its every jumpers responsibility to chose and use the right equipment for the job, if the c-race with performance foam is targeted for high performance competitive skydiving then its maybe not the right tool for base.

About the jump:

Me in front leading the way, Micah wanted to follow me and Mathias as number three.
Micah exited on the inner so he could be on me from the beginning.
We had good starts turning right to enter behind the spires and into the huge coluoir. I saw Micah´s shadow when we where flying trough that in quite hard dive and lots of energy. That part of the flight was amazing. Beautiful, fast, powerful and safe in the same time.
When we disconnected and flew out in the valley i saw Micah on my right side flying out in safe environment to pull. We had pretty good hight when we flew out in the valley. When i saw his video i saw him flare and have lots of altitude. At this point myself was still continuing flying much lower than Micah.

I pulled my canopy and right after opening i saw Micah still on my right side continuing flying. I was quite shocked that he hadn`t pulled because he started to be low.
Then i saw him struggling to pull his PC. I saw he tried different moves. Im not 100% but i saw him dearche instead of arching. Then he turned over to his back just before the impactl.
He was fighting to the very end to find the PC, he was not interested at all to crash himself into the ground. The eyewitnesses heard him scream before impact.

I landed and called rescue and ran over to find Micah. There was several people from the neighboorhod there already. There was nothing we could do.

When police and ambulance came we checked Micah`s rig. Pilotchute was just out of the pocket, bridle still in folds. So the pilotchute came out of the BOC at the impact.

We checked pins and and they were moving, just to be 100% sure.

We could not check his WS at this moment, but i think this issue has been taken from other jumpers and the manufacturer.



This accident was one of the accidents that just should not happen. I look back at the jump and can`t find any other things we could do to avoid this. The jump is one of the safer jumps i do. The flightpattern was done in a proper way.

I hope we can learn from this as all the other accident. The pull is the moment when I have highest heartratebeats trough a jump. Be sure that you can pull whatever you fly.

Im really sad for the loss to all of you.



Tom Erik Heimen

We clearly have not the same point of view.
I think a new equipment might require more skills to be used, but in this exact case who has really more skills than Micah ? So who is really able to use this suit ? And who should be able to buy it ?

Again I will say it: if this suit would have no air-locks it would not change the pressure in the suit but only it's reaction in turbulences, does this really worth 2 deaths ???
There is a solution to this problem: the Wingtip Pouch. Why it is not on that kind of suit ?

When the 3rd no pull on this suit will happend, because I'm sure it will (skydive or BASE) I hope that it will not be one of your friend. You will probably again say that it was his choice to take this risk.
I will not let any of my friends jump with that suit in BASE if I'm around, even if I would have to cut the fucking performance foam for that, or even the suit itself.
Be happy in you wonderland ! I'll be happy with my friends alive

After 1 people dying because of a specification of my suits and not because of a lack of skills I think I should at least stop selling them and rethink the design or a way to make this not happened again.
Don't you think ?
BTW I'm not selling wingsuits so I'm already selling something way safer than a lot of suits on the market.
On the wingsuit I'm making for me there is a Wingtip Pouch and cables attached to the risers to free my arms after opening.

I was not agree with you on that point, being like "freedom, own choices and self responsbility" but your last explanation made me being agree with you. If an evolution change so much the safety or if a gear have specific issue you have to make a stop or a step back to think about.

For the 3rd (and probably some others) no pull, it already happened in skydive few days ago and hopfully finished with a reserve ride.

Did Squirrel made a reminder post on their facebook or their website yet about it?
Maybe instead of the "NBS" (no bullshit system...) they should talk about the "NPS", the No Pull System...

It s nobody responsability to be smart for ourself so please guys, it s not because you can than you have to, so don t use this suit in Base, you have so many other choice now

I will not mix further into the discussion, but would like to add that we had a jumper (one of the leading PPC pilots) on a CR+ have issues reaching/finding his PC as well, same day as Micah's accident. I don't know if the foam/inflation is similar as the C-Race, but the problem and description of the jumper sounded the same.

The jumper visiting for a competition did 3 attempts to pull/extract his PC and then went for the reserve, landed that without issue. But mentioned problems bending arm, and reaching his PC.
Said jumper has very a good amount of jumps on his suit, and is a super current and active jumper, but encountered the same problem.

I was not there and I didn't know Micah. I have followed this incident as many others because Iam interesting in the "why".

Without all good informations, everything are just assumptions. Perhaps, the truth about this lost we will never know.

What I read, is that Micah was very confident in his suit and with the particulary of the pull (as Matt talked) and had is own sequence made in 2 times (one for decrease pressure in the wings, second for pulling) and was making a good flare before deploying. He was wearing an Snekor rig last generation.

What is a no pull? A no pull is no PC find (where is it?) or no possibility to pull out the PC from the BOC (block or too much effort needed!). There are no more other case possible. Why Micah can't succed to reach or to pull his PC? He was very confident with the pull on his CRace has he said to Mikki, with a lot of skydive with.

In difference with Nicolas in Brento who have no skills (experience) with his CRace and was surprise, for Micah it was the opposite. Why a such experienced pilot couldn't reach to pull?

I saw a video on FB from Kyle L. the last jump of the day before where it is easy to see the PC and BOC of Micah' Snekor. The Pc handle is just outside the BOC (handle closed by tape to not put fingers in). We can see too that the freecorner (on photo 1 and 2) is a little bit outside, covering the handle (on Snekor the BOC is a little more inside too, more than other rig as for example on mine LD2 on photo with free corner out).

Has Matt said the Snekor is not a good rig for that kind of wingsuit, more if you don't take attention to the PC position. A handle too much in the BOC, some material of the rig covering it and it will be impossible to pitch.

With a flare that at the apex you have just 5s in freefall before impact, why using this method where 5s in a full flight will give you 200m more in distance to pull safelly enough high over the ground? Isn't it the limit of that kind of wingsuit too, that you need a flare to decrease the hard internal pressure to pull?

Take care

Jérôme

There is a lot of noise in this thread already, but I think Jerome just asked a super important question. Why was this jump suddenly different? A lot of people, despite recommendation, have jumped this suit a lot in the base world, and I'd have to imagine Micah had more jumps than almost anyone on this suit. Why was this jump different.

I always flared quite hard prior to pull to depressurization close to a stall. I wonder if in the same way as not slowing down enough before pulling could make the wing extra rigid, pulling slightly too late, i.e. Past stall point and starting to accelerate again could make it more difficult as well. I've only done kind of a delayed stall and back into flight before pulling was when I was gettting ready to deploy and saw someone deploying closer to me than I expected. Not saying that is what happened, just trying to make any sense of this besides the "this is a horrible dangerous suit no one should jump" arguement. As has been pointed out already numerous times, Micah was extremely current and had flown and successfully pulled in this suit much more than a few times I'm sure without incident. What changed?

Excellent post and good observation.

I don't think anyone believes that those last jumps were worth the deaths.

And I'm not sure that the wingtip pouch is necessarily the solution, but it's certainly one possible option.

I bought a canopy (not from Squirrel) this year with micro lines, which I intended to use only for slider up. Stamped on the tail pocket was a bold, red warning "FOR SLIDER UP JUMPS ONLY." What if Squirrel made a similar stamp on the label of these suits that said "FOR SKYDIVING USE ONLY" or "NOT FOR BASE JUMPING" or something like that?

The majority of wing suit sales are in skydiving, not BASE. We can't expect a manufacturer to discontinue a product because it's not safe for a small minority of the users in some circumstances (i.e. when they are BASE jumping).

But perhaps rather than asking manufacturers to discontinue product lines that are (a) popular, (b) designed for a specific set of uses and (c) honestly, a passion product for the lead designer and partner; it makes more sense to ask them to revise their labeling.

You have a lot of good points. And having met you in person, I can say that your presentation here (via internet and in a foreign language) is a lot more abrasive than in real life, face to face. If you could make your internet posts more like you are in real life, it would help people to see the value in your views more easily.

There are obviously a lot of emotions running high right now.

I've removed some more name calling from this thread.

I'm going to lock this for 24 hours to give everyone a chance to step away from the keyboard and cool off a little.

If you are a jumper who has firsthand information about the incident or a manufacturer with technical knowledge about the equipment being used, please PM me and I will post your information into the locked thread.

I will open this again tomorrow.

Does anyone (Tom Erik?) know if there is exit video of the incident jump, that might show the bottom corner configuration on the container?

I will just try to explain the way I feel that is different from a lot of people here as I can read and as some are threatening me of "punching me in the face as hard as they can" by private messages...

I feel that doing nothing against something is being a bit responsable of it.

I lost a very good friend last year. I'm asking myself a lot about what I could have done to help him not making the mistake that killed him if I would have been with him this day.
Last year I started to push my limits, and the people I consider like my real friend told me that if I continue like this I will probably die. First I told them that I was in control, then because I have good friends they insist and told me again that I was pushing too much. At some point this idea grow up into my mind and I've done a step back.
So now I will not shut my mouth when I see somebody doing something that I feel is stupid or too dangerous, whoever he or she is, whatever experienced he or she is. I might not be heard, but if I was not the only one acting like this I really think we can save lives like my friends probably save mine.

You can think that the only responsible in that kind of accident is the pilot who makes the final decision of jumping or not, I think we can save lives if everybody would feel a bit responsible of not doing something to avoid it.

Perhaps the discussion of a fatal incident is the wrong time to push that. Remember that people have lost a friend here, and remember what that's like. A little more sensitivity at a time like this would not go wrong.

Sorry if it has hurt anybodies feelings. That was not the purpose. Delete it if you think it's needed

Tom,
This is Mathias, I was the third person on this jump. I do have a front camera angle where part of Micah's exit and the gear is visible, even though it's slightly out of focus. What exactly are you looking for?

Hi Mathias,
Something similar to what Kyle's video photos show, that Flyjeronimo posted, where it appears that the PC handle is partially obstructed by the lower flap of the Snekkor which has not been cleanly tucked in, out of the way.
My condolences, B.

When looking at the attached screengrab in my opinion the PC handle was properly accessible.

To the people with first hand knowledge. Did anyone see Micah actually reaching back attempting to pull? As in did he appear to have hands in an appropriate place to pull?

I think a lot of people already made up their minds as to "this was a hard pull caused by the suit". I still can't stop thinking "why on this jump and not the 100s of others?

Because probability. Something that works 99.9% of the time will probably kill a keen base-jumper in a couple of years!

What has my attention is the one Flyjeronimo has labeled "freecorner covering handle "

That just looks like a recipe for disaster to me. I think that not only is that a partial obstruction of the PC, it could be made worse when putting the hand back to grab the PC. I know that I would be very uncomfortable if I noticed that on my rig and would definitely make sure it was tucked in.
So I think if there was a clear image of something of that sort on the fatal jump it could be a significant factor.
I think it is just too easy to blame it on the suit, since Micah was relatively comfortable and current with it.
Regards, B.

Could a zipper blow-out affect it? If say the zipper at the lateral strap on the rig expanded, could the arm-wing side ride up when reaching back and obscure the BOC?

What about a specific speed and flare configuration which is both pressurising the suit and applying G forces from an unusual direction?

The people who have had no pulls on this suit skydiving must have some idea.

Someone I know recently had a hard pull, and very nearly a no pull, on a suit and container combination that they have jumped easily 100 times. The two pieces of equipment have been jumped independent of one another several hundred more times. That is to say, they were highly experienced with all gear, AND that specific combination of gear...and they nearly died from a no pull on it.

It's worth noting that both the suit and container were different from the current gear in question.

I think the answer is that sometimes weird sh*t happens. If you're jumping gear that is unforgiving of weird sh*t, then maybe you should reconsider your gear selection. It all goes back to adding margin.

We need to add margin in the lines we fly, the altitudes we open at, and the GEAR WE CHOOSE TO FLY.

I believe that racing suits inherently reduce margin for error. Stiffer leading edges, higher pressurization, larger surface area...these features, while awesome and amazing for flysight data, make the suits harder to use and therefore reduce your margin for error.

I think there is a (small) market for race suits. How many people in the world are actively racing wingsuits...really? Before you commit to flying a suit like this ask yourself; "How much do I plan on racing my wingsuit...really?" If the answer is, "every once in a while" or "less than I plan on BASE jumping it," or "less than I plan on skydiving it on non-race/training jumps" then buy a normal suit that is better suited (pun) to your most FREQUENT INTENDED USE.

If you're not racing on the regular, there are a lot of other tools out there that can do the same job with higher safety margins from ALL of the major manufacturers, Squirrel included.

Sometimes a small thing can make all the difference.

I remember having a really hard pull while flying a Prodigy (long flight, tired) !!
When I grabbed my PC, my index finger went IN the BOC. While holding the handle, my finger was hooked in the BOC !!!

It took me enough time to figure that out to have a low-low pull ...

Weird things happen, and they happen at unusual intervals--which is why they are weird.

I had my first missed pull in over a decade at Brento in late May. Fortunately I was wearing a tracking suit and had plenty of altitude (because I'm old and timid), but if that had happened at 300' with a wing suit (any wing suit, probably) on, I probably wouldn't be typing this right now.

It's very possible that this was just one of those weird things, and that given a combination of multiple other factors (fatigue, corner, container length, stiffeners, etc) he just didn't have enough time to recover and pull.

Having no WS-BASE experience, I dont think 300' are an adequate opening height. With any wingsuit!

But happens all the time I used to be guilty of pulling low now I pull a lot higher the flair with the newer suits help a lot with this you can be around 300 ft start initiating your flair as long as the terrain is not flat pitch altitude of 500ish. Not ideal I'm usually 600 or more if I can.

 
Look how short that container is. The past years have seen all winsuit containers made longer why? For the pull I guess. That container is not just short but it is even short on him. Look at all of the photos posted so far.

So you take a racing suit that everyone knows is gnarly. Then you put that short container on. Then you pull fucking low a bunch of times. Its called stacking the odds and this is BASE jumping and you don’t survive like that.

You can jump a big suit. You can pull low. You can jump the wrong container. But if you do all 3 things at the same time repeatedly then what do you think is going to happen?

Then the BASE forum gets going and the ones who are the loudest and the rudest of course have ZERO firsthand knowledge of the incident and are most likely to bash people. Look through Alygaydors posts. Look at them. Look through Laportes posts. These two guys exist to complain about one brand and pump their own brands up. I just looked through their posts you can search them. Funny detail, Laporte posts a couple months ago exactly this about the same suit:


I like to think that 99% of the readers here see through the shit here but in case you don’t. Allow me to point out what has already been said which is that blaming one thing for this is only possible if you ignore the actual facts that have been reported AND you are a total dick.

Did 5 people die this week? WTF.

Just to be clear you are calling me a dick? I wasn't even commenting about this incident just wing suit pulls in general

Good observations, you get to survive.
Others, carry on.
Enjoy.

You just don t get it. I know many guys in crace who had pull troubles. Julian and Noah jumped snekor for a while with big/racing ws without trpuble. I have no brand to defend, i buy my suits (not like many here who claims i m bashing Squirrel) And on this point just do a research and show me where i "bash" them...
Anyway if you prefer to put all the bmame on the guy just because it s the "one who decided to jump at the end" so go. If i prefer to point the finger on a specific point to warn people to take care because i m worry for my friends i ll continu.
If you can t get it because you thonk it s about brand i can t nothing for you

You should get back to Squirrel site where all the warnings disappeared since my last post...
I still think that Squirrel should not let their sponsored athletes jump that kind of Wingsuit in a Base environment. If a customer does it they have no leverage to stop him, but for a sponsored athlete they got one.
So here we are not in the same case.
BTW I am a dick who will continue try to prevent people of taking wrongs decisions if as much as I can.

This is a very good point. Leading by example and what not.

 

Do you mean this?:

This is not very informative. Could just as well mean, it's optimized for a better start, for example. Does not really convey safety issues.
I don't know why they replaced the previous warnings. Maybe they mention this more specifically when you place an order for the suit now? Would still not be informative for people who already own the suit or buy it 2nd hand (although probably very uncommon with this particular suit).

Liability issues?

 

Dude, have a chill pill, I was merely suggesting a possible answer to the previous posters question.

Nothing stereotypical about me but your american values and sue happy mentality, that would lead me, if I were the owner of that company, to take down all stuff that could possibly make a legion of lawyers bite their fangs into it.

So, if you havent noticed, I have kept my thoughts to myself on this topic. But if you're keen, yes, I wholeheartly agree with the concept of personal responsibility. I believe you should make your suits as safe as possible, however, if you choose to jump something with more performance that is having an impact on your ability to deploy, well, you ordered the shit sandwich, you might as well eat it?

Regarding warnings, would that have made a difference in this (or for that matter any other) incident?
I didn't know this jumper, but it sure sounds like he was well informed about the risks he took and the issues the suit may lead to.
Does anyone really think a warning on the squirrel website would have stopped him from jumping this suit in a BASE environment?

I have a hard time seeing anyone jumping this type of suit taking advice from warning labels or websites.

let me guess. you have been jumping for what, about 5 years? but you tell other brands and the customers of other brands what to do to their suits.

your short time in the sport combined with your very strong opinions and your habit of making strong statements, criticisms, and giving advice, is a bad combination in an incidents forum.

Let me help you understand: if someone swooped a high performance canopy into an airplane hangar and then crashed into the wall and died, you would not blame the high performance parachute for being too difficult to swoop into a hangar... Unless your company started making parachutes tomorrow, then of course next week you would have strong advice for the customers of the other parachute brands plus criticism of the other brands too.

then your buddy would say WHY DIDNT THE PARACHUTE COMPANY TELL HIM TO NOT SWOOP INTO A HANGAR. MY FRIEND WAS SURPRISED WHEN HIS HANGAR SWOOP WENT BAD ! then fledgling would say YA MATE WE NEED MORE RULZ THE TOP GUYS THAT WE ALL WATCH VIDEOS OF SHOULD STOP DOING THAT STUFF

Your posts arent helpful to the base community if you try to blame one thing which you are personally against, instead of encouraging people to understand the whole picture.

(wasatch guy sorry not calling you a dick!!! meant for the dick, not you)

I don't believe that anyone is suggesting that any manufacturer is responsible for the misuse of their gear.

Nor do I believe that anyone is suggesting that Micah was misinformed as to the risks of his particular gear configuration.

What I think Antoine, and others, are suggesting is that perhaps there could be more disclosures provided with respect to the technical nature of the pull in this suit. If that were the case, there would be no debating whether or not the market is informed enough to be responsible for their own decisions.

Cool story bro. Not sure how you managed to squeeze all that out of my comment but rant away.

I wonder if there may be an "unseen" factor involved. Would it be possible that there was some lifting air , from thermic or convergence, that could have added some internal pressure to his suit during pull time ? You know like when your starts are really good with some sun warming the mountain face.
- fly free brother

@basefetish
Just to try to make my point more clear:
I think we (me, you, brands, everybody who is involved in this sport) are not doing our maximum to prevent accidents like this one, because I really think we can do better.

On the 2013 WWL a jumper died by hitting a wall ouside of a turn.
Since this WWL I've not seen any wall outside of the turns, if you miss the turn you can fly out.
Did the jumper died because of the WWL organizers in 2013 ? No
Did the WWL have though that it might be a good idea to make a safer track for the race ? Yes, because they get it's was too dangerous to have a track like this one even if most of the pilots have no problem to fly it.

Same here.
Did Micah died because of Squirrel ? No
Do I think Squirrel could have done better prevention about that kind of accident ? Yes
Do you think they should have ? No
Do they think they should have ? Apparently no

2 opinions. You do not have to follow mine as much as I don't have to follow yours.

BTW I'm not producing wingsuits, I'm not selling wingsuits, I'm not sponsored by any brand. What about you and your impartiality/independence in this case ?
Squirrel is making very good wingsuits as I always said, and you can search for a long time anybody who can says that once I said something else (exept the 1st Swift because I head it from some of the squirrel testers themselves).

thanks for the clarification but your WWL analogy doesn't work.

Its NOT that a wingsuit company offered someone prize money to do something dangerous. WWL motivated him to crash with cash. here its the opposite.

The fact is that a wingsuit company made a race suit for skydiving and then someone took it to BASE and pulled low with the wrong gear- wrong container, wrong suit, wrong altitude. after being told it was not a good idea.

So forgetting the WWL, Antoine your argument is that these dangerous things were not obvious before.

But these things were obvious before! especially to someone with as much experience as micah. If you consider yourself an expert and someone who cares about base jumpers than you should be talking about low pulls and equipment choices maybe. not warning labels.

If we wrote the BFL report before the accident, and said Hey everybody what do you think about pulling at 300' in this wingsuit with this container? All the smart guys here would say "bad idea! you could die!"

Once again we don t blame the brand for the suit but for the lack of information. Like some already said here it was not obvious for many people that "it s a technical suit" means "this suit have a "specific difficult pull". Squirrel should be more specific on this point. (Difficult pull is not a "feature" on ws, technical or not, for years... it s definitly not obvious) The point here is not to find a responsible but to avoid it happen again!

You said the problem here was low pull and choice equipement:
Low pull for sure is never a good thing but as long he tried more than one time (from other jumpers feedback) to pull and can t achieve we will never know if even with more altitude he could...
Gear choice: obviously the crace is not optimal for base. The snekor, neither but it was used for years by Julian, Fred & Vince... without this kind of trouble. Even if it s the mix of the 2 crace is still part of the "problem".

You said the fault is only for the jumper who decided to jump it. Ok I m fine with that too as long as he knew all the info.

And the other concern is to know if even with this "hard pull" mastered if sometimes it becomes an impossible pull for some reasons (and to find it)

The sadest part is Squirrel still doesn t put any "warning" on the crace page...

I don't think that's fair.

Given the hostility displayed on the internet (in this thread for example), it's not reasonable to ask them to lay out their future plans publicly, but I'm sure they are thinking hard about how to reduce the chance of _any_ accident (from any cause) in the future.

The guys at Squirrel are good, decent people (like the guys at Apex, Atair, Phoenix Fly, etc) and you're certainly not giving them enough credit.

Please remember that this thread should be for discussion of this specific incident.

If you want to discuss things that are not specific to this incident (like things you want a manufacturer to do going forward), please start a separate thread in the appropriate forum for that.

If this discussion continues to wander, I'll split things off and move them.

Thanks.

As Tom said I edited what I've written here.
It's more for an other topic like this one
http://www.basejumper.com/...;;page=unread#unread

PLEASE KEEP DISCUSSIONS IN THIS THREAD TO THE SPECIFICS OF THIS INCIDENT.

Speculation about manufacturers actions or general discussion about crossing gear over from Skydiving to BASE or vice versa, or anything else that is not specifically about this incident, should be put in a different thread. Feel free to start new threads in other forums, or use the existing ones to discuss.

I have split some tangential discussion off from this thread and moved it to the Technical forum.

Thanks!

I think most of the major factors have been accounted for and discussed here, although I wonder if there is an issue with the container length, not for how high the BOC is - But the lateral location. I've never had the following problem on a jump, but have had it on the ground on a Skydive rig - Consequence to the lateral being situated at the very bottom of the rig, the slot between the Wingsuits zips, was exactly by the handle, so with a strange motion, the handle can actually go inside this 'lateral slot' - I only had this from sitting down in an odd position and never in flight as I said. This is as opposed to something like an LD3 where the laterals are higher on the rig, thus placing the handle below such a slot. Obviously Mattias's shot shows the handle in clear view, but I wonder if an aggressive turn in flight could change such - This photo shows the slot and handle a little too perfectly aligned if my point holds weight:
http://www.basejumper.com/cgi-bin/forum//attachment/88399

In the past a rookie could skydive the latest "high performance suit" and be fine. Many of us did.

IMO we recently passed a watershed, todays "high performance" suits are truly that. The combination of increased surface area, rigid leading edges and high wing pressurisation requires experience and technique to fly & deploy safely.

http://topgunbase.ws/...it-deployment-risks/

Maybe one day we will have a homologation system like they have for paragliders. https://flybubble.com/...agliders-which-class

+1

Id like to think we have learned this, but unfortunatly I keep seeing the same shit every season...from people with half the talent Micah had on one finger.