Sylvain Michel

Sylvain Michel

BFL#: 416 (19th of the year)

Name: Sylvain Michel
Date: 17th September, 2021
Nationality: French
Location: Pilastro, Trentino, Italy
Object Type: Earth
COD: Impact in flight
Clothes / Suit: Intrudair - halfa
Gear / Parachute: OSP
Age: 37
Skydive Experience: 700+
BASE Jumps: 500+
WS BASE Experience: 0
Years/Seasons in Base: 8+
Time of day: 3PM
Other factors: Unknown
Exit Altitude: Unknown
Conditions: Unknown
Wind on exit: Unknown
Description:

Sylvain had called his wife minutes before the jump and then no communication was received. A member of the public had called rescue services after noticing a canopy hung up on the wall.

Due to Sylvain jumping alone we are still awaiting video evidence after police finish their initial enquiries into his death.
Update as of 4th Oct 2021
Sylvain went to jump Pilastro in the afternoon after shitty weather in the morning.
The next are guesses and assumptions that are based on my own experience in jumping one piece tracking suit at this exit and with the FlySight data his wife gave me looking for answers
Sylvain had a very good start (less than 300/300) and from there his glide is almost all the time between 3 and 3.5 until is suddenly goes down before he impacted

I've experienced the same kind of conditions on this exit like in the video linked and it's very fun. I think Sylvain did not realize that he was flying slower than usual. My guess is that at some point the thermals/winds giving him lift suddenly stopped and in that kind of situation the feeling is that you fall without any power to make a turn to bail out. He was probably too close to the edge of the cliff (if not over it) and when it happens he tried to turn with no chance of something happening, I don't know if he pitched or not but seeing where the parachute was hanging on the cliff I would guess he did and probably impacted during the opening.
Lesson to be learnt: Thermals are nice, but they can disappear in a fraction of second so when we are flying in them we are gliding more than usual flying at an opening height from the ground is the minimum we should have in the one piece tracksuit as we do not have the power a wingsuit can give,
but as a friend of mine experienced the same kind of situation over the same talus last year in a wingsuit, we shouldn't do terrain flying in case of wind or thermals even with over speed. Be safe !

P.S.: https://skyderby.ru/tracks/9305/video
I'm turning left at the 30th second and I guess Sylvain did not, also I got the lift all along the flight, there are some places where if I had lost it suddenly I would have been in a very bad spot Please note the media have this name incorrect
https://www.rainews.it/.../tnt-volo-tuta-alare-base...




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