Basejumper.com - archive

Here is the link for BFL on http://Blincmagazine.com for those of you who are not on the Basejumper ONLY facebook page.
We do not release the name on here for 2 weeks until after the fatality even if the media already releases the name.

https://www.blincmagazine.com/...ex.php?title=bfl-359

If you are a base jumper and do not know about the BFL on facebook here is a link to the page.

(You will be asked to verify yourself as a base jumper)

https://www.facebook.com/...ps/BASEFatalityList/

As normal we release all details (Name/picture) we have been given here as soon as we get them from first hand accounts.

Here is the Base statistics page as well if you are interested

https://www.blincmagazine.com/...=Fatality_Statistics

And finally here is a new website where I am working with 2 jumpers to make it easier to find anything you may want regarding Statistics as well as the BFL.

http://bfl.baseaddict.com/

If anyone sees this as inappropriate, we can take it down, but it is all over the internet, the footage is public, not mine.

This jump resonates with me a bit. In Oz we jump h/h quite a bit and one could really start believing that it's a "safer" way, "better odds", etc. I think it is super important to learn from this one.

If anyone has contacts with the other jumper, I'd really want to see footage or better yet -- still screen-shots from his GoPro in free-fall to see if it was a snag or what...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urc6b7caBOo

I didn't know the dude, but he did post in 2015: no RIPs/BSBD/etc. Just wanted to be remembered happy.

Very sad about the media coverage on this incident.

Everybody talking bullshit. The worst, it appeared even in the Spanish news broadcast TV. They only wanted to show it because of curiosity, never been really interested in the sport itself.

The video have been spread troughout whatsapp groups, FB, and many others.

so sad, it looks like the PC inflates and starts doing its job just before impact!

Anybody know what's up with the weird way the PC is prepared and deployed?
Clearly this guy was super experienced, so it seems bizarre to fold the PC in a way that would obviously take longer to inflate than the standard way (looks like its prepared for stowed but left out of the BOC and held), especially if he's high man on a 2 way?

I'd definitely be interested in seeing better quality footage. The reported cause (PC in burble) seems weird to me. It would be useful to see better detail to analyze it.

Hey no disrespect.. but it amazes me that human beings can not
& do not learn from the past mistakes that countless of others have made.

I mean damn... How many proxy wingsuit deaths have to happen before someone actually learns from it. (excluding Charlie)


Human beings are dumb.

In the footage, IMO the PC goes inverted causing a major hesitation.

I have seen some people use a similar-looking method of folding the PC but they have different deployment technique. I had thought maybe it was a Euro thing. I've seen people throw it to the side, but they throw it hard so it gets to bridle extension quickly.

While the PC preparation method does not appear to be optimal it sounds like having it slip out of his hand in the throwing motion might have been the biggest contributor to this incident, as well as bad luck.

I feel like he might have realised his situation in freefall and managed to clear the PC but without enough height left.

i used to pack my pc like this for low jumps, then i almost went in on a 230' freestander. scared the absolute shit out of myself and my girlfriend at the time. now im a big fan of the mushroom with mesh exposed for any freefall.

I presume my attachment here is what you mean by "Euro thing" where everything (bridal / mesh and fabric) is all S-folded?

When I first learnt from a friend of a friend, I was taught folding the bridal, but leaving the mesh / fabric exposed and out, to "inflate and catch the air as quickly as possible...

On a FJC I did later I was taught the method in my attachment where everything is S-folded...

As I understand it the "mesh exposed" method inflates the PC quickly, but potentially before it has fully got to bridal stretch and that risks having loops of bridal knot or wrap over the PC itself... The "everything S-folded" method hits bridal stretch quickly and cleanly before also being the right way around to inflate...

From the pictures it looks like Dominik's method was kind of S-folded, but then wrapping bridal and mesh on inside and leaving the fabric on the outside for some reason. It also sounds like he then might have thrown in a more upwards direction too?

It is so sad that such a nice and experienced guy has gone in like this and Lauterbrunnen won't be the same without him.

This sucks, I've known that guy for a long time and he's an original for sure.

Now, as for the PC method just described I do exactly what the picture above me shows. "The Grenade" is just compact enough to have a wad to actually throw away from your body.

"The Pizza" method is great in theory, but I've seen that all that exposed fluff is a liability to itself as it's being thrown away from the body. Jumpers throw it but all that extra exposed fabric makes nearly impossible to throw more than a foot or two past arm extension.. just my thought, nothing more.

Gonna' miss that wierdo forever..

Can we all not rule out a bridle entanglement with the camera on his head? The way the PC looked to slip out of his hand, and then horseshoe the bridle and PC would lead me to believe it was caught on his gopro mount and never released. There shouldn't be any burble at that low of a speed. The second jumper looked as if he was looking at him for a few seconds right after exit. This camera would show what happened? Is that footage not in someones possession ? I just feel like its a dead giveaway that it was a PC entanglement with gopro mount, not burble at that low of speed.

The discussion is that the PC slipped out of his hand, if the bridle was caught on something that would make more sense to me

It’s the only reasonable explanation. I think the burble idea is not accurate, but I wasn’t there

I have been thinking the same thing. Briddle snag on the camera. Perhaps a cross wind from his right could have been a contributor... not sure... don’t know what the wind was like. Really sucks.

How about a 2 way in close proximity of your jumping mate on a 210 (70m) Cliff. Someone has to be the low man/woman. And at 210... everything HAS to be perfect. Farting will cause a hesitation.

Sorry for the loss of a spirit to all friends and family. But they should add a "lessons" or "take away's" on the BFL. just my 2c. But i feel everyone is a lesson to the next generation of what not to do, and some new things happen that make us all think.

In summary:
1. 210 2-way in close proximity
2. PC packing method? Maybe slipped out from his hand related to his packing method.
3. Bridle entanglement from camera r/t weak/poor toss on initial attempt to throw his PC.

I feel jumpers should watch the video once out of respect and learning. The rest of the world should not have access. But that's 3c of an opinion no one cares about.

Have you seen the second camera angle? The PC slips out of his hand as he's still pulling his hands inwards, not even 10 feet below the exit point.

Someone has the video and has chosen to not share it is my view of it. Either way, bridle wrap or not, let’s learn from both situations and avoid them at all costs to ultimately avoid the consequences.

No, that's how I was taught too, I alternate between that and the same type of S-fold but with the ZP free on the top.

What I meant was this sort of throw, clearer around the 0.18 second mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdi9eayJPys

In the BFL, it is said that the footage of both cams show a "slip".
maybe this could be an explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avAdCeV-xGQ at about 3:42 there is a pic which might show the cause.

My first thought on this was a bridle wrap with the bridle going underneath the armpit and up in front of the arm. Has this been ruled out?

This was my first thought as well.
After reviewing the BFL description and the youtube vid, I am unsure ...

Ah ok sure thanks I just wasn't sure exactly which you meant.

I've never seen what you showed in that video before, but it doesn't look pretty or make sense to me so I'll stick to what I know works!

That better quality video is showing PC leaving jumper's hand earlier than it seems that he wanted to. So could be a slip or lazy throw.

It is also possible that PC got choked by bridle.

Could be just old PC hesitating, like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITgBMc1Svg

To me it seemed like a bridle under arm scenario but people say that it wasn't so ok, let's move on.

Dwain Weston did an excellent write up about planing low jumps, PC choice etc. Jumper would have been better off with a 46-48 mushroomed or even PCA/SL. Maybe would have not looked as cool but he would have been alive.

In AU (where I jump) I continuously advocate to jumpers around me that SL/PCA is not "uncool", it is still a BASE jump, etc. That's my take-away.

SL is awesome for low objects. I do it all the time due to my object selection. I think people that look down on it are absurd. You cannot guarantee no PC hesitation and sometimes you cant afford any.

As for this incident I think the hand held configuration was not the proper choice for a go and throw.

I've no desire to watch the video so I'm not going to say if it was or wasn't a bridle entanglement in this case - but you're kidding yourself if you think burble can't happen on a H/H short delay.

Assuming you didn't jump up on exit, after 1 second you're falling at over 20mph. Drag reduction behind your body is already massive at 20mph. Ever watch the Tour de France? There's a reason they ride in one tightly packed blob. In cycling, one person riding with his body mass 1.5 meters behind another person (who is sitting in a far more streamlined position than a basejumper) at 'only' 20mph sees a reduction in power output of ~30%. And if you can tuck in even closer, it gets noticeably better still. And that's for a whole gangly person, with plenty of limbs and surface area sitting in cleaner airflow outside the core burble area of the rider in front.

So imagine what it's like for a PC sitting entirely in the burble area and less than 0.5m away from the jumpers body. For low jumps, where PCs are already working at their limits, margins are small and hesitations are easy to come by, getting separation of the PC from your body is crucial. Anytime you're in freefall you do have a burble and it can fuck you up.

Well, i did see the vid.. PC slipped out of hand, and then for some reason... PC stays right behind jumper at what looks to be half bridal length all the way to the ground. Maybe burble had some effect.. but why couldnt the bridal fully extend? Snag.. i wanna see the stowed jumpers video footage.. it's a tell all. Btw i didnt know you can go stow a 210' ... well it did look like he was 5 feet off the ground when his chute got goin based on shadows... yikes

I have seen clear vision of the accident as filmed by the bystander. The PC slipping out of his hand is purely speculative. I don't think he dropped it, just my opinion. I think it was realeased intentionally and because it was intentionally held inverted, top skin first, it skated over onto his back and stayed there. The bridal horse shoes above it until a fraction of a second before impact. A mushroomed PC and typical 45 degree throw most likely would have prevented it. Extremely sad.

I have footage of my good friend going stowed into a dis-used cooling tower, which is 60m (195ft), stowed with a 48PC.

Pure speculation, but on this jump the lower guy must have been expecting for his partner to "pop-up" and while not seeing it happen he could have fallen lower than planned.

The hill runs off at the bottom too so it gives a bit more height to play with, just a bit, because you start moving forward as soon as the canopy opens.

As said above to me also it looks like the bridal is extended but in a U shape, being trailed by the PC.

Snag was my first thought too. But have a look at this footage of another jump at that site. If the surviving jumper on the 2 way got footage as clear as this (perhaps he was the same person?) then I'd say they have a pretty good idea of what went wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5j2VjhwuMc

As said on BFL:
I confirm that Dominik' pc slip in his hand when he throw it away, then PC stay in the burble behind his boddy stuck to his back until impact.
Incredible but that's true. Very very bad luck.
Personnaly I couldn't imagine this can happen at so slow speed...
Some will soon share the external video.
What a shit!
Fold your PC in mushroom.
Take care

The good quality video I did screen-shots off is missing the last 2 seconds.

The last frame that is available to me here appears to be showing a fully inflated PC and the jumper appears to hit just as pins are popped, maybe canopy got lifeted off pack tray, doubt that deployment sequence went further than that.

Frame by frame adds a few interesting details:

+ PC does appear to separate from jumper to up to 1m or more even but then seems to return closer to his body before bouncing off again

+ Bridle is seen flaking around the PC, up, down, everywhere

+ Jumper moves hands to in front of him, then up, does something with his hands above his head (at which point he is almost upright), then reaches out with arms to horizon. Could be evidence that he realised a catch of something on something, clears it, goes to boxman BP but runs out of height

That's all I got at the moment, it;s too late and I am going to sleep...

Does anybody know if the PC itself was inspected by an experienced jumper post-accident?
Specifically, was the center line intact? Was it clear of debris or other internal snags? Etc.

Sorry, gang, I am still trying to get more clues out of this grainy video.

Obviously the jump plan was questionable in a sense that it was cutting it very close leaving no room for errors.

The PC packing technique was not optimal for the jump.

When jumper pitches the PC, it is presented to the air almost up side down resulting with all that bulky bridle being left on top of the PC.

As deployment sequence starts, PC is first up side down, then it catches air and as it is inflating PC moves to be almost perpendicular to the ground (ie cone of the PC was almost level with horizon). The filming camera is at at 30-40 degrees to the jumper and we can see the top round shape of the pilot chute fully inflated at one stage with depression in the middle.

But the bridle was not at full stretch yet. So as the bridle is getting extended, it yanks on the PC and it collapses inwards.

At this stage the video becomes too grainy and it is not possible to see if any snagging occurred with this flapping bridle.

But we do see jumper transitioning to almost upright position, probably awaiting for the canopy to be over him by now.

Then he reaches up, either trying to grab risers or trying to un-snag whatever got caught.

Jumper then clearly transitions back to boxman reaching out to horison with his hands.

PC is then seen as round and no longer dancing. It is no more than a dot at that stage but shape is consistent now.

We can also see body of jumper getting further away from the dot, meaning that the PC definitely got to full bridle length, most likely pulled pins and possibly (it's pure speculation now) got canopy off the tray and (even more speculation) pulled it out to pop off tailgate).

Jumper than impacts and canopy is seen as folded tube just as he impacts. So he impacted with as much canopy above him (if any) as the Russian Gon dude off that rusty tower, except that there was no 1.7m of soft pow snow below and thus no chance of survival.

Most likely though is that he impacted with just pins popped and nothing but PC slowing him down.

Question is: why did he pack his PC that way? I notice that the guy is older, probably was taught by the 80's jumpers. And lots of them had PC packed up side down. These days kids jump with a mushroom, could it be just legacy PC folding technique?

Not sure if there is a definite snag seen here, could be just PC getting yanked by the bridle and with no height too spare it got him...

It might make more sense to get the air to air video and examine that. It's a lot clearer than the cell phone video that was posted on Youtube.

I tired the "euro" way of holding the pc, I have huge ands and with a 48" PC I can understand how easy it was for it to slip out.

I very much doubt that. He was one of the world's most experienced and current jumpers. I find it very hard to believe that he would fold his PC "just the way he was taught a long time ago". It would be much easier to believe that he was personally experimenting with a variety of PC folding methods.

As I've seen the external video (air by air) no speculation as I've explain higher.
About Dominik he was generally jumping SD stowed and very current with aerial (like from bridge at V. in France) and I don't really know if he had so much experience in cliff low SD jumps as that one in Nazaré. If he had he should not have fold his pc "compact" like this in a 70m (230ft) jump!
This kind of folding is generally used to make a good or long freefall delay handle (SU handle too) and to stay stable during freefall, like Eric Fradet learned to me.
For me that is the "big" mistake (not folding in mushroom) and associate with a very bad luck. But BFL is full of that "little" mistakes or badluck.

This is definitely not the case. Firstly I don't think Dom was jumping any where near that long (I could be wrong). Secondly, I did a bunch of 200ft free falls with Dom at least 10 years back and he always used the mushroom back then.
My "opinion" is that that PC bundle looks like he simply slid it out of the BOC and kept it configured exactly like that. Anyone know if that was the case? Or was he actually folding it that way specifically before each jump?
As for the "Mushroom", I fucking hate it. I always S-Folded the bridle and then the entire PC. Far superior in control and placement.

Wow, if you mean slider up handle, like a PVC pipe handle or round knob then that would have contributed to the PC trying to fall onto its side for sure....

I mean, nothing new to the experienced jumpers, but some kids may not know that PC can collapse on itself. Here is my mate jumping a low object (about same height as BFL-359), stowed. PC is a 48 (or 46 I cannot remember) and jumper tried to exit and throw PC up and above exit point (not sure if that fully worked for him though).

Because of low air speed at play, as he slowly starts to fall, his PC inflated, got bridle to full stretch, popped pins and collapsed. Then it is seen getting re-inflated again and pulls the canopy out:

https://vimeo.com/304091152





Now, if my mate did what BFL-359 did, he may have been dead.

But because he used the equipment as intended (stowing PC), the Pilot Chute was 3 meters above him when it collapsed and there was enough air moving past it, over the body and the majority of the burble bubble, to be caught into PC and to re-inflate it.

A hand-held throw with lazy pitch is obviously now proven to be capable of traveling with the jumper for 50+ vertical meters until it gains that crucial separation from the body/burble to begin working as designed.

Placing a solid handle in the middle of all that material could make maters even worse.

I am so anal about this case because we have a local object here that gets jumped a lot and despite measuring 119m people go off mostly hand-held off it. It is a sketchy exit object and is overall quite dark and dramatic to be on. I've seen way too many off-headings on this object too. I feel like people jumping it hand held are creating potential issues for themselves where camera snagging can occur, PC can dance around and induce an off-heading deployment and now we see a fatality caused by what seems to be a lazy throw of hand-held PC with no other factors being at play other than PC was h/h and it was a lazy throw. I just want to make sure I take as much take away here for the local jump and other low (and low-ish) jumps that we do in Oz.

When did stowing a 48 pc become using equipment as intended?

I wouldn't make a habit of stowing a 48 for a low jump.

And a lazy throw wasn't the cause of this. Poor PC preperation method seems to be.

when flyjeronimo used the word "handle," i didn't take it to mean a PVC or any other attached handle (who would even put that on a 48 anyway??). allowing for a language barrier, i read it as, the PC was folded for overall compactness in his hand. maybe flyjeronimo you can clarify?

This reads to me that he is saying to fold like this if you are going hand-held on a long freefall delay (so long that you might even be going SU) where having the ZP exposed may cause drag and instability.

he started base in 1997. a pic from november 14 in the attachement, because I didn't see it here in yet.

Yeah - I saw that picture sometime and thought what the fuck is going on with that pc, what’s he thinking? No good is going to come of that.

it looks sloppy. I wonder if there are any good videos of a proper PC pack someone can throw in here.

Here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/...3SbL4ZHXXHNoHAhsU3rg

Thanks Tom, I figured you had a video, didn't want to dig it out on my phone.

It is unbelievable.
This has been discussed and gone over for at least 20+ years and its sucks someone had to die for this issue to come back to light.
To do that shit on a super low, solid object while doing a multi-way blows my mind. But "Hey, check me out".
I'm not sure what is more ignorant, the technique used for this jump or the wuffo yelling down after the bounce "are you alright"?
Yep, I'm salty about it.. so sorry if I offend but this sport is already dangerous enough. How about stacking the odds in your favor!!
Crazy concept right?

Here are some maybe dubious things I saw from the video.
a. I don´t understand why Mr. Stowed was second to exit. Protocol would be HH exits simultaneous or 2nd.
b. It looks to be a right to left crosswind. PC pitch should have been from the left hand (downwind hand). If this was the case (upwind crosswind pitch), the PC must go to the downwind crosswind side before doing its job, passing through one´s burble on the way, losing time.
c. 2 way from 70m.
So, think about and discuss it. The exit order and the upwind crosswind side. Do jumpers not have these logical protocols or are mine wrong.
Take care,
space