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Incident Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFpCSpj4ec&feature=youtu.be

Location: Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Exit: La Mousse
Date: 05 July, 2017
Jump Type: Solo tracking
Conditions: Afternoon, 12-15mph right-to-left wind (from jumper's POV).
Gear: Sumo 2, Summit, FLiK 280 (standard weight)
Jumper Age: 33
Jumper Experience: Approx. 250 jumps.

Jumper is of beginner-to-intermediate experience with most of his jumps being slider down. This is his first trip to The Valley and is jumping relatively conservatively with respect to exit points and maneuvers. He had successfully performed numerous uneventful jumps from this and other exits in the valley during the prior week as well as having jumped for several days in Lysebotn prior to coming to Switzerland.

On this jump the jumper achieved less performance from his track than he had been on the prior few jumps from this exit point (had been making it past the trees prior to opening at a safe height), and experienced an approximately 180 degree right off heading opening.

Upon briefly gaining canopy control, jumper attempted to avoid the trees by trying to complete the turn to the right using right toggle. He then impacted a tree top with force and proceeded to descend rapidly through the trees.

Once in the trees, anticipating a hard landing the jumper made a conscious effort to put his feet and knees together and perform a PLF. This, along with his sheer good luck to "land" on a relatively soft, inclined, spot free of hazards (rocks, logs, etc.) helped him to avoid injury.

Lesson Learned: Open higher, especially when opening over obstacles such as was the case here. A jumper must allow for the possibility of an off heading opening on any jump. In this case he opened too low given his position over the trees to ensure adequate height/time to safely turn the canopy around and avoid the trees in the event of an off heading.

He may have been able to escape with immediate left toggle, but chose right toggle because he felt himself and the canopy turning to the right and felt he would lose more height by reversing direction, but then again maybe not. Regardless, if he had simply opened higher, he could have turned the canopy around in either direction to avoid the trees and landed safely.

It's worth noting that this same jumper has previously avoided an object strike after a 180 from a SD cliff, successfully stopping the canopy's forward movement with double rears and then turning it. However, he had given himself an adequate height margin for this by taking a conservative delay. In the case of this jump described/shown here he did not.

Please feel free to provide thoughtful analysis and recommendations for the benefit of this and other jumpers.

Incident Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFpCSpj4ec&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/...amp;feature=youtu.be

Good Summary, glad he is okay, 2 things I will add:

Trajectory of track could have slanted toward the
Right to better manage the crosswind variable.

Using a distance covered to estimate pull time does
allow one to mis-judge the amount of time elapsed.

I would agree that opening higher is a good lesson to be learned from this but I would hope that "the jumper" would learn more lessons than just pull higher. Pulling higher is great but it's a bit too simplistic and narrow minded in my opinion for BASE jumping. Pulling higher doesn't necessarily mean "the jumper" will never be back in a situation like that again. BASE jumpers need to able to evaluate and determine ways to change the outcome of a similar situation if if ever happens again. From my observation I see more than a few things that can be learned that may help in the future.

The canopy opened in a little more than a 90 off but then kept turning. In my experiences with these type of openings that want to keep turning, they were a result of improper harness loading and slow or no corrections in the harness during inflation. Being more aware of body position and applying input throughout the opening sequence is a great take away from this jump.

Another point to look at would be when "the jumper" got to the toggles at approx. 120 degrees off heading. At this point I feel like he could have used the skills mentioned in the 180 SD jump. Rear risers or possibly better in this case, unstow the brakes and keep them deep and make a flat, deep braked turn to the left or maybe even the right instead of a radical unstowing and burying one toggle that only increases canopy speed and loss of altitude. This combined with the 12-15mph downwind push, turns a slow docile canopy into an uncontrollable, fast moving and fast sinking monster for the low experienced pilot in many easy situations, let alone this situation.

Also, "the jumper" was tracking slightly downwind at an angle that made clearing the trees more difficult. Being more aware of wind and the effects it may have on the track and canopy opening is another lesson to be learned from this jump. Edit: I see where GreenMach said the same.

One final lesson would be that the trees can really bite you in the ass(or smack you in the face), but they also can be a life saver as in this case. The first tree smacked "the jumper" upside the head but the other trees grabbed him and his canopy and slowed them down to a survivable speed.

Trees +1 for the knockout
Trees +1 for the life saving assist
"jumper" +1 for surviving unhurt

Trees win 2/1. Care to play again?

I would say a flat turn, left, with toggles would be the textbook response. Tough to get it right every time when in the hot seat though.
Rear risers may have worked too but remember heavy rear riser input can use up a lot of altitude fast and even cause a similar diving turn if the jumper ends up stalling their canopy in the process.

Edit: This should be standard on every single opening. Open, unstow and clear toggles to deep brakes, evaluate the situation, proceed accordingly.

From what I could tell in the video, the off-heading wasn't that significant. Not sure why the jumper pulled the right toggle? Clearly doing a right turn at 0:28. No reason to keep going with the direction of the off-heading. If he'd just turned left, away from the trees it would have been fine. The trees are on quite a steep slope.

A bit more altitude would have been good.

So why did 570 and 1366 both think flying away from
the cliff towards the Right would be a good idea when
Wind conditions are 12 to 15 MPH from Right to Left ?

Think the same... so easy to escape on left hand... the wind would have increase the lift too instead of pushing deep in the right turn.

Now the major error was to try to track over the trees... without margin. He should had pull 3s before... You are so focus on far away that you forget to estimate your real vertical hight from ground. Beginer tracker error, many wingsuiters make this too.

To progress you must have in head your margin and not inverse eating your margin to "think" that you make progress... Increasing its skills is always done with keeping its margin of safety... and this could have many many differents aspects for each one of us. Error is at 95% human, see BFL. Nothing more to say.

Take Care :-)

Wind does not increase (or decrease) lift. The airfoil generates lift from it's airspeed, which is not changed by the windspeed. Wind changes only the groundspeed--not the airspeed.

On a skydive, in a field, during a stable windblow.
A little more complicated on a mountain hill considering all the dynamic and thermal activity
Not that that is necessary the case in the video. But turning into the wind makes more sense just out of consideration of hitting the trees. Upwind is s bit more likely to not die.

I think I disagree with you Tom.

My approach to this jump would be to:
-Exit slightly to the right
-Track my body to the right
-Fly my parachute to the right

Planes take off and land into the wind.

Why would going straight or to the left be better?

Edited to add a simple image with variables.

Planes take off and land into the wind to decrease ground speed, air speed stays the same.

I didn't say anything about that.

I have not watched the video, and haven't looked at this accident at all.

All I said was that wind does not alter airspeed or lift generation. That's definitely true. Turning into/down wind and expecting a difference in lift generation based on that turn is a fundamental error.

I don't think tracking to the right would have been a better option Greeny.

If we assume the edge of the trees is a straight line parallel to the cliff (appears to be true here), then actually I think the best flight path would have been to track with your body pointed straight away from the cliff, yielding what would appear to be a slightly leftward flight due to the wind.

If you fly to the right, you are using some of your speed to fight the wind instead of getting away from the cliff, and actually end up lower when you clear the trees (if you clear the trees)

As I thought about it more, the advice to fly into the wind is actually dangerous because it can lead to someone ending up low because they were trying to "straighten" their flight path to compensate for wind. It might even be relevant to this incident. But how much of an effect?

Let's consider a well known jump in the valley where jumpers like to play the game of "track past the power lines." The jump has about 2000ft of usable altitude until deployment, and the powerlines are 1500ft from the exit horizontally. A good tracker is in the air for about 20 seconds.

First look at a jump with no wind (red is powerlines):



The tracker covers distance d, clears the powerlines, and heads to the horner.

OK, now suppose there is a strong right-to-left wind of 15mph = 22ft/s. What happens to the jumper's flight path? No matter what direction the flight path is, she will be exposed to the wind for 20 seconds, and so will be blown to the left by an amount equal to: h = t * w = 20s * 22ft/s = 440ft. If you wanted to compensate and fly straight out relative to the ground, then you would need a flight path that covers 440ft to the right. If you look at it from the wind's frame of reference it looks like:



Using the above diagram and some high school trigonometry gives the following equation:



Applying this equation to our hypothetical scenario yields delta = 66ft. So, 66 feet is not a huge effect, but on this particular jump could be the difference between clearing the powerlines or not.

If you track to the right like GreenMachine you will end up either short or low:



If you track straight but let the wind take you, you will get farther in life:

Yes...

"Afternoon, 12-15mph right-to-left wind"
I don't have seen the top of the trees moving? When the wind is blowing, it is stronger in the middle of the valley and less on the edge. At the exit there is just small thermal, nothing strong, no cross wind it seems.

For me it is just a bad choise to try to pass the trees due do the not efficient track. The choise to turn right was bad too (more a usual reflex I think) and make him diving into the trees. The off heading (100°) on right with the facing body in the axe of the track, push him in a swing that give more angle of the canopy and speed and more with taking the toggles off, loosing the hight quickly. For me, it would have been better to stop by the risers and go out by the left side...

I don't think that "supossed" wind have anything to do in this incident. Lucky guy.

Simple: Pull Higher

First, "Greeny" was the handle for a much more
impressive jumper than me, I think he is dead.
His name was something like Ralph Greenway.

His profile: http://www.basejumper.com/...cgi?username=greeny;

I do not hold a pilot's license, never taken Physics
in college, but over 15 years I have tracked many
times and landed a parachute 6,000+ times.

In my experience, planes, bodies, and parachutes
just fly better into the wind and than down wind.

To: platypii

IF one flies straight away from cliff the wind
would make their Trajectory be Slant Left,
which your diagram shows is Longer...

Tom is right. Lift does not change with wind direction. Your ground speed does which will definitely change your perception of what is taking place.

This is just your "Feels". It definitely "feels" more comfortable when they are pointed into wind but again this is just your perception.

"air distance" vs "ground distance"

It is longer in "ground distance" but the extra length of the ground hypotenuse is like a "bonus" push from the wind. Your tracking vector is perpendicular to the wind, so it doesn't really count in terms of how well you get away from the cliff.

If you do the math to look at it purely in terms of "air distance," (what platypii did) the best tracking distance comes from not correcting for winds, i.e. crabbing. Then, the tracker who crabs into the wind actually is trying to cover the longer leg of the triangle. It is indeed a little bit confusing...

Simpler way to look at it is, any time you point your vector into the wind even a slight amount, it will cut into your total ground distance travelled.

More importantly why refer to yourself as 1366 in this instance?

Your calculations are helpful and true if you assume the edge of the tree line were a parallel line to the wall but it is not. The shortest distance to get past the trees is to the right, even taking into consideration some wind. Tracking downwind will make the distance greater because the tree line moves further away from the cliff face almost meeting with the road.

This was my issue with tracking downwind. You have to cover an ever increasing distance to get past the trees.

It also appears that the trees to the right are lower or shorter than the trees on the left. Most likely because of the underlying terrain.

Actually on this jump with winds constant all the way down it may be a wash which direction you choose. They all may be equal in the end. I guess pulling higher is the only solution

Hi Julian,

I most likely did it for parity, since I was referring
to the other guy by his number -- so I used mine.

Peace,
~Tom

For the benefit of the community

Please keep your paragraphs shorter and your pull altitude higher.

This thread is testament to how much spare time most basejumpers have.

There is nothing to analyze. Dip shit pulls low crashes into trees. Left turn., right turn... luck of the draw!

Pull higher or react faster.

DONE

and track further

Amen to that. Who needed trig to work that out??