Legal Considerations

When you are considering to do a jump with potential legal consequences, your jump plan becomes significantly more complicated. The section on BASE legalities discusses some of the issues with these types of jumps. The page on incident planning also considers how legalities change the dynamics of a jump gone bad. This page considers how legalities affect your site analysis and jump plan.

Stealth

The bottom line for any jump that involves breaking the law is that you need to avoid being seen or heard. If you manage to jump and get home without anybody having witnessed it, you can call your jump a success. By all means get video and show it to you friends, but as soon as one uninvolved and unsuspecting witness sees you, the jump should be considered a failure. You have now brought heat to the object, and to jump it another time has just become more difficult.

This recommendation should not be taken lightly. Take pride in approaching an object James Bond or ninja style. Don’t think you are untouchable. Don’t assume you can walk in the middle of the road instead of between the trees, walk under the bright halogen lights instead of remaining in the shadows, or scream with joy after your canopy opens instead of waiting until you are safely back home to crack a beer.

Real life is not always as Hollywood movies depict it, but in the case of breaking the law to jump, it never hurts to take cues from movies like Mission Impossible. Consider it part of the game you play. A game for grown-ups perhaps, but not any less fun than the jump itself.

Approaching

The second you trespass, imagine a clock that starts counting down. When it reaches zero, you will be busted. It is highly advisable to make your jump as quickly as possible and leave the area as fast as you can. If you can put on your body armor and kneepads at home, do it. If you can check your three-rings at home, do it. Don’t show up at the exit point and waste valuable minutes putting on your protection, doing a full gear check, and repacking your pilotchute. These are things you can do at home for the most part, and should be done there.

Furthermore, get ready for jumping in a hidden spot if your exit point is more visible. Imagine a crane jump where the crane is connected to a building. Usually the boom and counterweight boom of the crane are covered with bright lights exposing you to anybody looking up. You want to minimze the time spend on the boom. So why not gear up while you are still inside the building, and quickly cover the remaining distance fully geared up and checked, ready to jump?

The complement of this is that as long as you are not trespassing or otherwise breaking the law, you should do your best to look as inconspicious as possible. Don’t approach an object wearing body armor and kneepads over top of your clothing. Just be some random dude with a backpack (that happens to contain a rig).

Jumping

Plan your jump at the right time of day. Between 2:30 and 4:00 AM most people are asleep and it is often a great time to get a jump in. Resist the temptation to jump earlier or later to better fit your schedule. Being tired at work the next day is the price you’ll have to pay to make an unseen BASE jump.

Take this timing into account when judging the difficulty of your jump. Power lines and other obstacles become harder to see and landings are significantly harder because your depth perception is less accurate at night.

Getting Away

On jumps where you break the law, your getaway plan becomes infinitely more important than on completely legal jumps.

Make sure you have a getaway plan that covers all scenarios. Think of the following scenarios and come up with a strategy for each one. Discuss your plan with everybody on the load and your groundcrew, and make sure everybody agrees on the best way to handle the scenario.

You are seen just as you hop over a fence.

Will you quickly hop back over and run? Is it every man for himself, or do you stick together? If you split up, do you have meeting point you can meet at a later time? Do you wait until things quiet down and consider another try a few hours later?

You are seen when you are only two meters away from the exit point, geared up for jumping.

Now what? Do you jump because you are busted anway? Do you jump because the person that sees you has no access to the landing area and you’ll be able to get away that way? Do you walk down to minimize potential legal consequences?

The sound of your canopy opening causes a person to see you.

Do you bring it in for landing to the same landing area, or did a more difficult landing area just give you a better chance of getting away? Are there still people at the exit point that also want to do a jump? Do you radio to them not to jump? Should they wait, walk down, or jump as quickly as possible?

Perhaps this person is just an innocent bystander who happened to be walking his dog late at night. He might be excited about BASE jumping and understand the need to keep things quiet. This will work better if you go up to the person and share your passion for fixed object jumping. Alternatively, this person could have a narc complex and insist on calling the police on you. When in doubt, assume the latter. If confrontation is possible, assume the former. Be friendly and polite, but don’t hesitate to share what a beautiful sport BASE jumping can be (and subtly drop how you wouldn’t have to jump here if the NPS would allow jumping…)

One person on your crew just got busted by the police but you managed to get away.

Do you turn yourself in as well? Is your friend going to drop your name with sufficient pressure from law enforcement? Will you split up the fines regardless of who got caught and has to pay them, or is it each man for himself?

What about your groundcrew? They voluntarily put themselves in an interesting position to help you on your jump; are you going to stick up for them if they get in trouble?

BASE WIKI offers more questions than answers when it comes to getting away after you broke the law. There are no right answers. The important thing is that everybody involved in the jump is aware of what policies guide your getaway.