A few days ago I posted a video of three wingsuiters doing some “amazing” close proximity flying. I put the word amazing in quotes because one man’s amazing is another man’s freaking nuts. It’s a crazy video to watch with the pilots flying extremely close to the ground and the skiers they were filming with. Now I’ve wanted to fly my wingsuit close to the ground or cliffs for a long time and watching videos like that really gets my heart pumping. Ripping along at 80 mph with my face just inches from the ground would crazy fun, I mean I’ve literally had dreams like that for years. What can I say? I’m not normal. But even though I live what most people would call a very dangerous and risky life I do know that some things are just a little too dangerous. That’s why I don’t BASE jump, so far. If I ever do start BASE jumping it will be from someplace really high like the 3,500 foot fjords in Norway or the 4010 foot drop of Mt. Thor in Baffin Island, and even though it would be fun to fly next to the rocks I’ll just jump and track away from the wall and open my parachute, so it would be, you know, safe.
Yesterday the three jumpers in the video jumped out of a helicopter in Switzerland and were playing “follow the leader” We’re not sure exactly what happened yet but it appears that they got too low and couldn’t recover. Two of them died and the third is in critical condition. Here are two screen shots from the video that show then flying just inches from the snow. Sure hope it was fun, cause you’re done.
OUCH! And THAT”S why I don’t Base jump. One of the jumpmasters that worked for me was killed jumping from a TV tower 10 years ago and last year another former employee that I’d taught to jump broke both legs in a similar incident to the you just linked to. No thanks.
Speaking of tough, check this out: http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2013/10/31/dw-moab-base-jump-disaster-nearly-costs-pro-climber-life-limb-full-hospital-interview/