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2. Sylvain Duchene

Date: June 24, 2018
Name: Sylvain Duchene
BFL# : 344 (14th of the year)
Date: June 25th
Nationality: French
Object Type: Earth
Location: Verdon, France
COD: Low pull/Impact with partially inflated canopy.
Clothes / Suit: Slick
Gear / Parachute: Slider up/38 PC
Age: 39
Skydive Experience: Unknown
BASE Experience: 1,200
Years in Base: 18 years
WS BASE: unknown
Time of day: 21:00
Exit Altitude: 290 Meters

Description:
On our third jump of the day we attempted what Sylvain called the "Snake" which is a 3 person totem pole front flip. I was on the top, another jumper in the middle and Sylvain on the bottom all stacked on each other's shoulders. The exit and the flip went perfect. After the flip, I broke off and got stable and watched as Sylvain and the other jumper stayed together for another flip and when they broke off Sylvain was facing the cliff. He spun himself around 180 and pitched very low. Sylvain's canopy extracted but did not fully inflate before impact. It was an exit he had jumped many many times before (over 200). He was very familiar with it. It appeared to have been loss of altitude awareness's. He was focusing more on turning himself away from the cliff than his altitude.

Sylvain loved to pull very low so it's very possible he just misjudged an intentional low pull. We will never know for certain.

I do not believe it was a issue of complacency. Sylvain wouldn't let us do the jump during the day because he said it was too windy (even though I thought it was okay to jump). Sylvain appeared to be reckless to some, but he was actually quite calculated and knew when to walk away from a jump. Just the day before his last jump we went to jump a cliff by the sea. It was extremely windy and 3 of us jumped anyway, but Sylvain did not.

Sylvain was my mentor and has taught me so much in BASE and in life. He was someone many of us looked up to. He is a legend. He enjoyed every minute of his life and lived it to the fullest. We will deeply miss him.

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