Date: September 11, 2008
Nationality: Danish
Object Type: Earth
Location: Ultimate, Stechelberg, Switzerland
COD: impact
Clothes / Suit: wingsuit

Description:

The jump site where he went in on is called the ultimate.

It is a great jump and not actually very dangerous itself, but getting to the exit point and the exit itself is a big mind fuck. Even after my first jump there I landed and I was shaking and I have 1700+ jumps. From what I was told afterwards it was Simon's first repel which would've added to the nerves. The exit is also technical as you can't see over the edge past a few meters and it is quite underhung for the first 50 feet. Nothing too dangerous but again, a big mind fuck as you need to push off quite hard to get clear. For me personally it is a tracking jump and not a wingsuit jump but it is not for me to tell others they can or can't jump. Again Simon seemed like a safe and sensible jumper so I did not worry about him at all.

We were not looking up when Simon jumped but immediately after impact his friend came running over explaining what he had just seen
He said he saw someone tumbling and then a partial parachute coming out and more tumbling down the wall until the talus. He also said there was no way that who ever it was could have survived, so it must have been fast.

From the exit point my friend told me that when Simon was about to exit he was very nervous and couldn't get his footing in the right position to exit. (its a bit of a shitty exit point for your feet and there is some grass on a slope). When he exited he went off in a head down position with, I think, his right shoulder down, with his opposite leg kicking to get stable, before he disappeared out of view.

When I got to him on the talus he was wrapped in his tangled canopy and dead, with massive multiple injures.

In my view I feel that he exited a little unstable and possibly panicked because of the mind fuck related to the jump. Because of the wingsuit trapping his arms in and also his experience level, I feel he tried to fight the tumbling all the way down either

1) until impact where the parachute bounced out and he continued to tumble and get wrapped in his canopy until he stopped.
or
2) he tumbled from exit and opened his parachute to late and tumbled down to where he came to rest.

I have a feeling from memory that his pilot chute was still in its pouch which would mean it was scenario number 1.

There is not much to do to prevent this type of death except for each and every person to know their own experience levels and not push forward to soon. This is an age old problem that will never go away. Either you make it through that stage of jumping, either uninjured, injured like a lot of people do, or dead which is still pretty rare over all with all the jumps that get made.

I do think that his death has made people realize that this jump is an experienced peoples jump only and hopefully that will keep people away. A similar lesson is learnt from every fatality.

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The List:
BASE Fatality List

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