List of fatalities due to wingsuit flying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 Stunt parachutist Gerard Masselin jumped from a biplane showing his wingsuit to the camera and was killed after his parachute failed to open.[2]
13 April 1998 Patrick de Gayardon died testing his pioneer wingsuits in Hawaii.[3]
5 October 2003 Dwain Weston, 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.[4][5] 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 – discuss] 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.[6]
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.[7]
26 March 2009 Shane McConkey 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.[8]
28 August 2009 Eli Thompson died while performing a wingsuit proximity-flying jump from a helicopter in the Swiss Alps. He accidentally hit the side of the mountain.[9]
12 April 2010 Geoffrey Robson died during a wingsuit BASE jump from Stellenbosch, South Africa. He was a PhD candidate at ETH Zürich 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".[10][11]
23 June 2012 Hervé le Gallou, who was, along with Dave McDonnell, one of the first persons to jump from the Burj Khalifa, died wingsuiting on Grande Tête de l'Obiou in the French Alps.[12]
14 August 2013 Mark Sutton, 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.[13]
18 August 2013 Mario Richard, an American wingsuit flyer, died during a wingsuit BASE jump from Sass Pordoi in Italy’s Dolomites.[14]
23 August 2013 Álvaro Bultó, a Spanish wingsuit flier, died after a wingsuit BASE-jump in Switzerland.[15][16]
9 Oct 2013 Hungarian wingsuit flyer, Victor Kovats, plunged to his death in trial run for world championships in Tianmen Mountain after parachute failed to open.[17]
13 March 2014 Prolific climber, adventurer, and BASE jumper Sean "Stanley" Leary was killed in a BASE jumping accident near Zion National Park, Utah.[18]
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.[19][20]
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.[21]
2 September 2014 Alex Duncan, a 26 year-old Australian from Manly, Sydney, died after crashing into a mountain during a jump in the Swiss Alps.[22]
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.[23]
16 May 2015 Dean Potter (43) and Graham Hunt (29) died during an illegal wingsuit flight from Taft Point, in Yosemite National Park.[24]
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.[25][26]
10 July 2015 Damian Hrdlicka, 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.[27]
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.[28]
7 June 2016 Brazilian Fernando Brito (42) died while trying to jump from Pedra da Gávea, Rio de Janeiro.[29]
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.[30]
26 June 2016 Gary Kremer (30), an American BASE jumper and former U.S. Marine, died while wingsuit flying with friends in Canada.[31]
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.[32][33][34]
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.[35]
26 August 2016 Armin Schmieder (28), an Italian BASE jumper, died after jumping from Kandersteg, in the Swiss Alps.[36]
18 November 2016 Mehdi Habibi, 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.[37][38]
25 January 2017 Canadian wingsuit flier Graham Dickinson died after a crash during training in south China. His body was found on a cliff at the Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie of Hunan Province.[39][40]
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.[41][42]
28 June 2017 Micah Couch, 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.[43]
6 July 2017 A 30 year-old man from Switzerland died after his parachute failed to open during a wingsuit flight in Haute Savoie in France.[44]
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.[45]
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.[46]
24 June 2018 Robert Haggarty (47), a UK national originally from Dumfries Scotland, but living in Goodworth Clatford near Andover in England, died on a wingsuit flight in the Italian Dolomites. The experienced BASE jumper lost control during a wingsuit jump and suffered fatal head and chest injuries.[47][48]
27 July 2018 Mike Racicot, known as "Treehouse Mike", died on a wingsuit flight in Switzerland.[49]
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.:[50]
12 May 2020 Chinese female university student An Liu (刘安, 24) disappeared in Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park, Hunan Province after jumping from helicopter at a height of 2,500 m. Her body was found on 18 May 2020. She was an experienced wingsuit sporter with more than 500 flights.[51]
9 September 2020 34-year old wingsuit pilot David Wall died when he crashed during a flight in the Churfirsten mountain range in Switzerland.[52]
17 November 2020 "Jetman" pilot Vince Reffet died aged 36 during a training flight with his jet-powered wingsuit in Dubai.[53]

References[]

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