Fatalities from wingsuit flying have occurred almost from the inception of the sport. Below are listed the most notable ones, including when wingsuit practice was not the first cause of death.
Date | Details |
---|---|
4 February 1912 | Franz Reichelt (30), the inventor of a pre-modern wingsuit, jumped from the Eiffel Tower to his death in a failed test flight.[1] |
16 September 1963 | French stunt parachutist Gerard Masselin (27) jumped from a biplane showing his wingsuit to the camera and was killed after his parachute failed to open.[2][3] |
13 April 1998 | Patrick de Gayardon (38) died testing his pioneer wingsuits in Hawaii.[4] |
11 October 2002 | Experienced Swedish BASE jumper Lukas Knutsson (38), died when his parachute failed to deploy during a jump from Fürenalp, near Engelberg in the Swiss Alps.[5] |
5 October 2003 | Dwain Weston (30), an Australian skydiver who held the 2002 BASE jumping world title, died after hitting a railing on the Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City, Colorado.[6][7] This was not a BASE accident as he had jumped from an airplane; it was technically an illegal jump since he used BASE equipment containing only one parachute (i.e., no reserve parachute).[disputed ] The pilots were eventually reprimanded for allowing the jump. |
22 October 2004 | Roland "Slim" Simpson was a well known Australian BASE jumper. On 6 October 2004, Roland Simpson leapt from the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest skyscraper in China at the time, in a wingsuit. After a good jump and flight, his parachute opened with multiple line twists making it difficult to steer and he crashed onto an adjacent building. He went into a coma, and died several days later in Canberra Hospital.[8] |
9 May 2007 | American adventurer and TV personality Jimmy Hall (41) died on an expedition to Baffin Island in northern Canada. After several days of successful jumps, Hall attempted a wingsuit flight through a canyon. He failed to clear a ledge, and struck the cliff.[9] |
26 March 2009 | Shane McConkey (39) was a professional skier and BASE jumper. McConkey was performing a complicated ski-BASE jump in Italy. He experienced problems when he attempted to release his skis, and as a result failed to deploy his parachute in time.[10] |
28 August 2009 | Eli Thompson (36) died while performing a wingsuit proximity-flying jump from a helicopter in the Swiss Alps. He accidentally hit the side of the mountain.[11] |
12 April 2010 | Geoffrey Robson (30) died during a wingsuit BASE jump and proximity flight from a cliff on Duiwelskloof near Stellenbosch, South Africa.[12] Originally from South Africa, Robson was a PhD candidate at ETH Zurich working on the mathematical modelling of the aerodynamic characteristics of wingsuits. He was described by a former professor as "very careful [, taking] the sport seriously".[13][14] |
16 September 2011 | Valentina Rotar (37) from Slovenia died while jumping from High Nose in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. After opening her parachute, she hit the cliff wall and was killed on impact.[15][16] At the time, she was one of two women BASE jumpers in Slovenia[17] |
23 June 2012 | Veteran BASE jumper Hervé Le Gallou (51), died wingsuiting on Grande Tête de l'Obiou in the French Alps when he was killed on impact, due to possible equipment failure.[18] Along with Dave McDonnell, Le Gallou was known for being one of the first persons to jump from the Burj Khalifa and had jumped from the Eiffel Tower over 40 times.[19][20] |
7 July 2012 | New Zealander Alan McCandlish (31) was jumping with friends when he struck the cliff face and fell near Berner Oberland, southwest of Zürich.[21] McCandlish hit a ledge, plunged over a cliff and fell to another ledge to his death. Australian BASE jumper Chris "Douggs" McDougall, who witnessed the accident noted how McCandlish was wearing a new suit for the jump and may have misjudged his ability to turn.[22] McDougall wrote that the accident was a result of "100% human error".[23] McCandlish was part of the team that pioneered the Kaipo Wall in Fiordland National Park in 2008. They were first to claim the biggest vertical cliff in New Zealand.[24] |
9 September 2012 | Swedish-Polish adventurer Wioletta Roslan (37) died on a wingsuit jump from the Flower Box at Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland when her parachute failed to open.[25] Wioletta began skydiving at age 19 and had jumped from this location many times before.[26] Four months pregnant at the time of her death, Wioletta was making one last jump before her pregnancy advanced further.[27] |
8 December 2012 | Australian Peter Farley (33) was killed in a wingsuit jump after colliding with another skydiver during a formation dive above Wilton, south-west Sydney, Australia. Farley was said to be struggling with his wingsuit during the jump.[28] An investigation found half of the 17 flyers participating in the jump lacked the prescribed Australian Parachute Federation ''star crest'' qualification to perform jumps with more than 10 people. The organization suspended several instructors who were involved in the mass skydive after the accident.[29][30] Farley's death is recognized as the first wingsuit death in Australia.[31] |
14 August 2013 | Mark Sutton (42), a British stuntman who had parachuted into the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony as a James Bond character, was killed when he hit a ridge while wingsuit BASE-jumping near Martigny, Switzerland.[32] |
18 August 2013 | Canadian-American wingsuit flyer Mario Richard (47), died during a wingsuit BASE jump from Sass Pordoi in Italy’s Dolomites.[33][34] In 2011, he was the first to jump from Tofana di Rozes alongside his wife, Steph Davis.[35] In 2012, Richard estimated he had completed 7,000 sky dives and 2,000 BASE jumps without injury.[36] |
23 August 2013 | Álvaro Bultó (51), a Spanish TV presenter, extreme sports enthusiast and wingsuit flier, died after a wingsuit BASE-jump in Switzerland.[37][38] He was the son of Francisco Bultó, the founder of the Bultaco and Montesa motorbike companies.[39] |
9 October 2013 | Hungarian wingsuit flyer, Victor Kovats (40), plunged to his death in a trial run before the Red Bull World Wingsuit League world championships in Tianmen Mountain.[40][41] His parachute failed to open due to equipment failure or adverse wind conditions.[42][43] Kovats was a three-time Hungarian national wingsuit champion and had successfully completed over 700 jumps before his death.[44] |
14 January 2014 | Canadian doctor David Strather (41) was killed during a wingsuit proximity flight near the Grand Canyon.[45][46] He died on impact 15-20 seconds after jumping, possibly from equipment failure.[47][48] |
8 February 2014 | American BASE jumper and parachutist Amber Bellows (28) died wearing a wingsuit when her parachute failed to open after jumping from Mount Kinesava at Utah's Zion National Park.[49][50] BASE jumping is not permitted at Zion National Park. Amber's death was the first BASE jumping fatality reported at Zion in the park's history.[51] |
13 March 2014 | Prolific climber, adventurer, and BASE jumper Sean "Stanley" Leary (38) was killed in a BASE jumping accident near Zion National Park, Utah.[52][53] Leary climbed Yosemite's El Capitan more than 50 times and had set numerous climbing records on that mountain, including setting speed records for climbing the Salathé Wall, with Alex Honnold; and The Nose.[54][55] Leary's death was the second BASE jumping fatality at Zion. His body was found about 300 feet from the top of West Temple peak and was retrieved by his friend and climbing partner Dean Potter, who would later be killed in a wingsuit accident in 2015.[56][57] |
29 March 2014 | Three experienced wingsuit flyers: New Zealander Dan Vicary (33), Frenchman Ludovic Woerth (34), and American Brian Drake (33) jumped from a helicopter over the Lütschental area near Bern, Switzerland. They had planned to land in the valley, but took a wrong turn, flew over the wrong ridge, and crashed into an alpine pasture. Vicary and Woerth were found dead; Drake died four days later in hospital.[58][59] |
31 March 2014 | Canadian wingsuit flyer Ricki Wüst (35) died in a wingsuit jump from High Nose on the Mürrenfluh in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.[60] |
25 May 2014 | American wingsuit designer and professional stuntman Jeff Nebelkopf (43) died in Sebastian, Florida after experiencing trouble with his equipment during a wingsuit jump.[61] He was known for his development work on wingsuits and for instructing others in the sport.[62][63] |
6 June 2014 | Darío Barrio (42), a famous Spanish TV chef, owner of the Madrid restaurant Dassa Bassa and an experienced wingsuit flier, died in an accident while participating in the International Air Festival at Segura de la Sierra in Jaén, a province in southern Spain. Darío was supposed to fly over an old castle but, for unknown reasons, crashed into the cliff where the castle is located.[64] |
2 September 2014 | Australian Alex Duncan (26) from Manly, Sydney, died after crashing into a mountain during a jump from the Croix de Fer in the Swiss Alps.[65][66][67] Duncan had completed over 500 wingsuit jumps prior to his accident.[68] |
14 January 2015 | Josh Sheppard (31) an experienced wingsuit flier and skydiver with more than 3,000 jumps, died when his parachute failed to open after he illegally jumped from a Michigan TV tower.[69][70][71] |
16 May 2015 | Dean Potter (43) and Graham Hunt (29) died during an illegal wingsuit flight from Taft Point, in Yosemite National Park.[72] |
3 July 2015 | Colombian Jhonathan Florez (32), known as "The Birdman", a 2013 wingsuiting world champion, died after falling from the exit point at Engelberg, Switzerland.[73][74] |
10 July 2015 | American Damian Hrdlicka (52), a long-time skydiver and Yahoo-sponsored sky surfer, was found dead with nothing out, approximately two-thirds of the way through his flight path at Gitschen, Switzerland.[75][76] |
1 October 2015 | American adventurer Johnny Strange (23) crashed into the ground and died after jumping from a 2,000 metre summit in the Swiss canton of Uri.[77] |
12 January 2016 | Mathew Kenney (29) crashed and died while wingsuiting in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in northern Arizona.[78] In a 2015 interview, Kenney shared that he had completed over 5,000 successful jumps.[79] |
7 June 2016 | Brazilian Fernando Brito (42) died while trying to jump from Pedra da Gávea, Rio de Janeiro.[80] |
9 June 2016 | Dario Zanon (33) an Italian BASE jumper known as "The Great Dario", one of the world's top wingsuit drivers, died on the side of the French side of Mont Blanc Massif after a failed wingsuit flight from the Aiguille du Midi.[81] |
26 June 2016 | Gary Kremer (30), an American BASE jumper and former U.S. Marine, died while wingsuit flying with friends in Canada.[82] |
17 August 2016 | Uli Emanuele (29), an Italian BASE jumper, died in a crash at Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland while shooting a new video. He was famous for his flights through a ring of fire and a "needle's eye" formed by a rock. The other fatality was a 49 year-old Briton who jumped from the "High Ultimate" peak at Muerren and who also crashed into a cliff.[83][84][85] |
21 August 2016 | Alexander Polli (31), an Italo-Norwegian BASE jumper, died after crashing into a tree at an elevation of 1,500 m near Chamonix.[86] |
26 August 2016 | Armin Schmieder (28), an Italian BASE jumper, died after jumping from Kandersteg, in the Swiss Alps.[87] Schmieder live-streamed his fatal flight on Facebook.[88] |
3 October 2016 | Ratmir Nigimyanov (30), a Russian BASE jumper, died after jumping from Aiguille du Midi above Chamonix, France. His parachute failed to open. Witnesses saw him careening off a rocky outcrop just above the town, before crashing into a building site behind the train station. This incident prompted the local mayor to ban wingsuit flying above Chamonix.[89] [90] |
18 November 2016 | Mehdi Habibi (38), an Iranian BASE jumper, died after jumping with a wingsuit from the "High Ultimate" in the Lauterbrunnen, Mürren area of the Swiss Alps. He was found dead in rough terrain by a team of Air Glaciers in the afternoon of the same day according to the local police report. His body was subsequently recovered by the rescue team. The incident is believed to have occurred around 9 AM on Friday 18 November.[91][92] Before his fatal accident, Habibi completed 4500 skydives,1000 of those by wingsuit. Of his 800 base jumps, 270 were by wingsuit.[93] |
25 January 2017 | Canadian wingsuit flier Graham Dickinson (28) died after attempting a flythrough of "Heaven's Gate" a 130 meter tall natural cave formation in south China.[94] His body was found on a cliff at the Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie of Hunan Province.[95][96] Dickinson was known for BASE jumping from the Whistler PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola in February 2014,[97] after which he had to flee the country once the stunt went viral.[98] |
24 May 2017 | Matthew Ciancio (42), an American wingsuit skydiver, died after jumping from 13,000 feet in California as part of a wingsuit formation with "four or five" other people. Ciancio reportedly failed to follow correct emergency procedure to release his main parachute after it did not deploy correctly. Witnesses said he waited too long to release his main parachute and switch to his backup parachute.[99][100] |
28 June 2017 | Micah Couch (33), a skydiving instructor, an American resident of Dubai, wingsuit flyer, and Red Bull Aces wingsuit competitor, died during a wingsuit BASE jump in Aurland, Norway. Witnesses reported that his parachute failed to open, causing him to crash into the base of the mountain.[101] |
6 July 2017 | Swiss national David Bugnion (30), died after his parachute failed to open during a wingsuit flight in Haute Savoie in France.[102] |
11 November 2017 | Valery Rozov (52), a Russian climb jumper, died while jumping with a wingsuit from a height of 6,812 meters (22,349 ft) off Ama Dablam mountain in Nepal. According to members of his group, Rozov crashed into the side of the mountain.[103] |
22 January 2018 | Aime-Jean St. Hilaire-Adam (27), a competitive skydiver from Calgary participating in the World Open Wingsuit Championships, was killed after he collided with another jumper, lost consciousness, failed to open his parachute, and crashed onto a roof in Perris, California.[104] |
24 June 2018 | British BASE jumper Robert Haggarty (47), lost control during a wingsuit jump and suffered fatal head and chest injuries in the Italian Dolomites.[105][106] His accident was witnessed by Dr. Angelo Grubisic, who would lose his life in a wingsuit accident a year later.[107] |
27 July 2018 | Canadian Mike Racicot (37), known as "Treehouse Mike", died on a wingsuit flight in Switzerland.[108] The experienced BASE jumper made 969 jumps, and was known for his jumps of the KL Tower[109][110] and for living off grid in a secret tree house he built on Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, B.C.[111] |
27 July 2018 | Nicolas Galy (40) was killed 20 seconds into his jump over Bouloc-en-Quercy in France when he was struck by the plane he jumped from.[112][113] The plane's pilot was later charged and found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.[114] |
8 June 2019 | Jean Andre Quemener (32) from Jersey was blown into the rock face after jumping off a 3,000m peak in the Italian Dolomites and fell to his death.[115] |
30 July 2019 | Jon "Bam Bam" Malmberg (52), an experienced kitesurfer and paraglider with 140 BASE jumps and 300 skydives, died in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, while wingsuit flying supposedly from pulling his pilot chute too slowly. At the time of his accident, he was wearing a "tracking" wingsuit, designed to prevent slow pulls and save lives.[116] |
20 August 2019 | Dr. Angelo Grubisic (38), a Serbian-British wingsuit champion and astronautical engineer, died on a planned BASE jumping accident in Saudi Arabia. Grubisic had been leader of Southampton University's wingsuit design team and had set up a project to design a safer suit that could break records.:[117] |
12 May 2020 | Chinese female university student An Liu (刘安, 24) disappeared in Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park, Hunan Province after jumping from a helicopter at a height of 2,500 m. Her body was found on 18 May 2020. She was an experienced wingsuit skydiver with more than 500 flights.[118] |
9 September 2020 | Wingsuit pilot David Wall (34) died when he crashed during a flight in the Churfirsten mountain range in Switzerland.[119] The American jumped from the Sputnik point on the Hinterrugg, a well-known BASE jump location.[120] [121] |
17 November 2020 | "Jetman" pilot Vince Reffet (36) died during a training flight with his jet-powered wingsuit in Dubai.[122] |
7 January 2022 | James (Jimmy) Richard Pouchert (55) died in a wingsuit flight from a cliff overlooking Professor Valley in Moab, Utah.[123] The professional BASE jumping instructor had completed thousands of jumps during 20 years of skydiving experience and 14 years of BASE jumping experience.[124] Several years before his death, he narrowly avoided a serious accident while wingsuiting when he accidentally jumped without a pilot chute.[125] |
18 July 2022 | Champion Australian wingsuit racer Chris Byrnes (34) died in a wingsuit accident at Schynige Platte, Switzerland.[126] At the time of his death, Byrnes held many FAI world records for wingsuit flying, including fastest speed[127], longest time[128], and greatest horizontal distance.[129] |
4 January 2023 | Jarno Cordia (44), a Dutch wingsuit flyer, died BASE jumping with a wingsuit near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. After jumping from a sheer cliff at Hig La Mousse, he crashed into a rock wall several times.[130][131] |
26 February 2023 | American flyer Kali Alecia Turner (33) died in a wingsuit accident while jumping from Pedra dos Cabritos in Castelo, Brazil. She fell approximately 800 meters when her equipment malfunctioned and died upon impact.[132][133] Turner made her first wingsuit base jump two days before her death.[134] |
3 June 2023 | Mark Andrews (65), a retired engineer from Cornwall died after falling 400 meters down a rock face at Val Trementina in the Dolomites while wearing a wing suit.[135] Andrews made nearly 600 jumps since beginning the sport in 2014.[136] |
10 June 2023 | Dominik Ertl (42), an experienced wingsuit flyer, died in a crash landing in Walenstadt Sputnik, Switzerland.[137] He had "nearly 2,000 jumps under his belt over the past 10 years".[138] The Austrian lost speed after performing a corkscrew maneuver, and initiated a flare that caused further deceleration, as opposed to gaining altitude. After two failed attempts to pull his parachute cord, he was successful on the third attempt. However, it was too late and he "[impacted] in a horizontal body position."[137] Ertl documented his wingsuit flights on camera, which he posted on his YouTube channel.[138] |
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