
Why are so many BASE jumpers dying? - oska
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/activities/aerial-sports/why-are-so-many-base-jumpers-dying/
======
wavefunction
I have a feeling that the ability to share 'experiences' via the internet and
especially video of such experiences leads individuals who are adrenaline
junkies to push the limits beyond what might be safer. The desire and push to
"one-up" each other.

"How close can I come to the cliff-face? How close to the ground can I skim?
I've seen others who have gone this close, can I go closer?"

It's right there in Sat Dex's narration. "Today you fly with me." In that
phrase is both the sharing of the experience and the central-ness of that
experience to the individual identity of the jumper.

I was watching the Philando Castile facebook live video shot by his girlfriend
and watched him get shot live, half-way across the country. What a queer and
unsettling feeling to be sitting in my house and know that a human being is
dying at that same moment so viscerally...

~~~
idunno246
I know somebody who recently trained for base, and skydiving, they don't allow
you to carry cameras until you have a bunch of hours specifically to prevent
this from rookies. Not that these are all inexperienced, but it's a risk the
community acknowledges.

~~~
manarth
In the UK, you aren't allowed to skydive with a camera until achieving a "C"
licence - minimum 200 jumps. That's a common requirements for many overseas
dropzones too.

Most BASE courses won't accept you without a minimum of 200 jumps either.

------
Zuider
This seems to be the key paragraph:

"Most beginners who die appear to be making variations of the exact same
error, according to Webb. “They jump off a cliff, get flying, and for some
reason there's just this human reaction to try to hug the air like a big,
gigantic beach ball,” he explains. “By hugging air you feel as if you're
creating or catching more lift than you actually are. What ends up happening
is your suit can only grab so much air, and it starts to stall. When it starts
to stall, it loses lift, starts to drag, and then, splat."

~~~
dahart
I was a little surprised by that quote since this is something you learn in
skydiving class, and everyone's getting basic skydiving certification in order
to start BASE. You learn on your first day that if you hug the beach ball, you
will flip and fall with your back down. The easy to remember analogy is a
falling leaf -- leaves always fall concave (edit I mean _convex_ ) side down;
cupping the air is completely unstable.

Anyway, you're right, it's an important piece, and I'm sure the hugging the
beach ball thing might become an instinct response that overrides your
training and happens very quickly when it becomes obvious that you're going to
collide in 0.5 seconds. But, the article also immediately follows that with
'but that doesn't explain why the best flyers are dying'.

The singular reason people are dying is because they're pushing the boundaries
of proximity flying, not because beginners are accidentally stalling once
they're too close.

~~~
estefan
> leaves always fall concave side down

That explains it. They fall convex side down...

~~~
jon_richards
Easy way to remember: a cave is concave.

~~~
Zuider
And it would be very vexing to try to enter a convex cave. Science class
mnemonic!

------
joeyspn
The answer is rather simple:

\- Popularisation of the sport thanks to social media and silly videos with
fancy dubstep music.

\- BASE jumpers trying to push forward the sport.

\- Irresponsible companies sponsoring pro jumpers in order to film _" even
more difficult yet"_ maneuvers.

Personally I tried to get into BASE some years ago, but after watching a
russian documentary with explicit and horrible scenes [0] made me seriously
think.

People in social media only get to see the successful jumps but not the dark
side of the sport...

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SkyDiving/comments/1etupz/russian_d...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SkyDiving/comments/1etupz/russian_documentary_about_the_dark_side_of/)

~~~
cromulent
It's more complex than that. It's difficult to find a pattern, that's what
everyone is casting about for. Two people died last month after slipping on
the exit, for example.

~~~
goldfeld
Maybe this is just the year of humanity finally facing our hard reality ahead.

------
Daviey
When sport parachuting first started it was horribly dangerous with techniques
and equipment mostly adapted from military procedures. As the sport grew in
popularity, technology and training advancements made the sport what I would
consider safe.

BASE jumping is starting to go through this maturity process. When the sport
first started, there was no known procedures and people died from 'silly
things', which were easily avoidable..

There also wasn't purpose designed BASE equipment, people were using modified
sport skydiving equipment.

Now that BASE is going through this process, equipment and training is
improving. There is quite a lot of peer pressure to not even start BASE
jumping unless the person has a few hundred skydives... and even then, more
people seem to be doing First Jump Courses, with experienced BASE instructors.

However, some parts of BASE seems to be trying to grow too fast and use the
technology advancements from skydiving too soon.

Proximity BASE is really mental. It's super impressive to see, but a
significant majority of recent deaths and injuries have occurred from this.
This is why there has been a re-emergence of high death statistics.. The
traditional BASE statistics were starting to reflect massive improvements in
safety.

One of the respected BASE instructors did a really useful talk here.. and it
contains a bunch of advice which is pretty portable to general life:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2O-Dpw0Yfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2O-Dpw0Yfc)

~~~
cromulent
True. I would say that the equipment has been really good for a long time now.
I can't think of a fatality in the last 10 years or so that was caused by gear
failure, although there have been packing errors.

The sport is very unforgiving of mistakes, obviously. Only today I saw a video
of someone about to do a rollover without their legstraps on. Luckily the same
guy as in your video noticed and yelled at him to stop. Fatality avoided.

Most of the recent spate of deaths though don't follow any particular pattern
apart from the wingsuit being the common factor.

------
TheLarch
I found this article disappointing because there's no advancement of a thesis
or journalistic investigation. The author could have tracked down any number
of illuminating statistics: number of wing suits sold over time; BASE/wing
suit deaths over time; number of live videos posted over time. As the piece
lacks either of these, it's almost pointless and thus the author attempts to
tie it together with a question, just as you often see in college essays.
There's no honest attempt to answer the question. So it's neither an essay nor
investigative journalism. It's Reader's Digest. The article cashes in on
prurient interest in death without paying anything back.

(To be clear this is an interesting topic to me. I followed Dean Potter for
years, back from when he first made his name for slacklining and climbing.)

------
dahart
I think most everyone watching the sport has been predicting a higher death
rate, it's quite unsurprising, and why is not a mystery -- but this article
was very well done IMO. It's clear from the explosion of wingsuit videos that
the risk factor is dramatically higher, and that the videos themselves are
going to be a factor in luring more people with less experience to try it. It
looks _amazingly_ fun, and very tempting if you're already or willing to start
skydiving.

I personally feel very lucky to have passed through the skydiving phase of my
life alive. Every jumper I knew personally except one is dead now. Some died
in the most crazy unlikely ways, and a bunch of them died together in a plane
crash after a weekend boogie. Skydiving is super dangerous, and BASE is even
more dangerous, and wingsuit BASE trying to buzz the ground within inches --
How are so many BASE jumpers NOT dying??

~~~
joeyspn
Skydiving is known for being _very safe_. Safer than american football,
boxing, scuba diving, motorbike racing, and many other sports [0]

[0] [http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-
risks/](http://www.besthealthdegrees.com/health-risks/)

~~~
dahart
Whoa there buddy, slow your roll.

I used non-specific and subjective language.

Please tell me how skydiving ranks against boxing _per participation-hour_.

EDIT: The comment above used to say "stop spreading lies". That's why I said
"slow your roll", I was being called a liar for expressing my opinion.

Now that he edited his comment, mine looks bitchy. But maybe you can stop
downvoting me anyway?

~~~
joeyspn
I don't know of stats that include _per participation-hour_. If you have them
please share... I provided you with stats from trusted sources like the
National Center for Health Statistics (see the link).

~~~
dahart
I'll go look, it's been many years. Regardless, it's easy to see that
participation hours racks up more deaths in skydiving than other sports.

You are free to express your opinion, and free to disagree with mine. What you
can't do is call me a liar for expressing my opinion, that is unreasonable.

 _All_ of the sports you listed are super dangerous.

Plus, you ignored the larger point. I wasn't making a point about skydiving, I
was saying something about BASE jumping. Do you disagree that wingsuit BASE is
more dangerous than skydiving?

I am a skydiver. I'm not current, but as a subscriber to USPA magazine, I'm
well aware of the safety levels and risks. As are you. How you interpret the
stats is up to you, but it's fair to call any significant number of deaths in
any activity "super dangerous". It's equally fair to say that something with
lower deaths than something else is, relatively, "super safe". All a matter of
perspective.

But really, why do you care? It's not a secret that skydiving has risks.
What's your point trying to call me out for saying that? Do you think people
aren't participating in it because of the risks, and that my speaking it out
loud is going to prevent someone from trying it?

The article the thread is about is talking about how the display of risky
behavior has led to more risky behavior, not less. My local DZs are curious
how every single time there's an accident and the local news talks about it,
business triples for a month or so.

~~~
joeyspn
_> ...as a subscriber to USPA magazine.._

Somewhat you missed the safety section in USPA's website:

"According to the National Safety Council, a person is much more likely to be
killed getting struck by lightning or stung by a bee."

[http://www.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety](http://www.uspa.org/facts-faqs/safety)

~~~
dahart
Again, what's your point? Skydiving is super safe. There, are you happy?

What you just cited is both irrelevant and not a statistic. Getting stung by
bees doesn't typically result in injury or death, so who cares how likely it
is relative to anything?

Neither lightning strikes nor bee stings are "activities" per se, it's not
something you choose to do. It's more fair to compare skydiving to motocross.
But people don't accidentally skydive, so comparing to lightning strikes and
bee stings is meaningless.

------
s_q_b
...because it's hard to jump off a cliff and live?

------
tedmiston
> To further complicate the issue, many died while working to create “content”
> in the form of films and Instagram photos for their sponsors.

That's an incredibly complex ethical decision for the brand. I think Clif is
doing the right thing by pulling out of sports with very low margins for
error.

~~~
jsprogrammer
The right thing was not sponsoring. Pulling out is just limiting personal
liability.

~~~
tedmiston
That's easy to say but it's not like they started sponsoring when things
became riskiest.

------
finid
Isn't that like playing Russian roulette? I'm sure it's fun and exciting, but
that comes with a major risk.

~~~
oneloop
Hahaha I just made a comment exactly like yours. I think we'd get along.

------
pessimizer
The biggest takeaway from the story for me is that Facebook is now
micromanaging censorship so finely that it's now deleting anti-wingsuit posts.

~~~
narrator
Getting angry about anything, even your friends dying, is no longer allowed.

I sometimes go to [http://voat.Co](http://voat.Co) and poke around when I want
to remember what the Internet used to be like. It's one of the few forums that
doesn't have a blanket ban on expressing anger.

What's funny is that it's very Californian to never express anger. East coast
culture is more direct. People will say to each other that they don't like
something the other person did or are upset or angry at the other person. On
the west coast, especially California, it's really important to be nice, so
people will just cut off contact when they've been offended or decided they
don't like someone rather than confront them. Those California social values
seem to have migrated online.

------
grondilu
Can't help but think of Franz Reichelt:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBN3xfGrx_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBN3xfGrx_U)

------
musesum
“Right now, wingsuit BASE jumping is, globally, the hottest thing going for
the impressionable, 18- to 35-year-old single-male demographic.”

I used to do free-climbing. The first time that I climbed with ropes was with
friends. It was also their first time with ropes. They didn't know how to tie
a knot. The first time I repelled off a cliff was with a gold line with
partner feeding from below. The knot slipped. I felt a vibration and hands
instinctively grasped. I was 4 stories up and hanging on literally at the end
of my rope. I was 22.

I started to look at my body as a resource. Climbing helped to fine tune a
sense of balance. Kept the mind sharp. Then read that Chris Langton (an A-Life
pioneer) had a hang gliding accident. Started to make risk-reward assessments.
Changed sports.

~~~
ahlatimer
Your first outing with climbing is like someone going out BASE jumping having
never used a parachute before, accompanied by people who had also never done
anything remotely akin to skydiving, who also didn't have the foresight to
even do some research on how to rig or even put on the parachutes. Yes, that's
dangerous.

Climbing has some inherent danger, obviously, but with a bit of knowledge and
staying within some reasonable safety limits, the likelihood of dying is
nowhere near BASE. I think part of that is that, at least amongst the climbing
community, the celebrities aren't wholly people pushing the limits with
danger. Sure, we have Alex Honnold, but we also have Tommy Caldwell, Chris
Sharma, Adam Ondra, Alex Puccio, and so on, climbers who are pushing the limit
in _difficulty_ but not really _danger_. Perhaps that's because "difficulty"
and "danger" are not inexorably linked with climbing. You can have a close-
bolted route in good rock with modern bolts that's not particularly dangerous
that's still really, really hard. La Dura Dura is the hardest sport climb in
the world. I probably wouldn't kill myself on it, even if it's way above my
pay grade (assuming I could even reach the first bolt). I don't know that you
can do the same with BASE.

~~~
musesum
Exactly. Trust someone that has survived their 20's. I now ask "So, how many
times have you done this?"

I really admire the focus and patience. Back in the 70's, my inspiration was
Royal Robins. I like the idea of leaving no trace on the rock. Not sure what
modern bolts are like.

------
justin_vanw
They jump off of things.

Not to be too glib, but if it was, 'safe' nobody would be interested in
watching them do it. If many didn't die doing it, well that is what safe
means.

For example, my 12 hour video "United Flight, Coach, Extreme Red Eye" got way
less views.

~~~
SubiculumCode
fewer, not less

------
oneloop
Does it make me a bad person that I have no sympathy for these people? You're
doing something quite dangerous, did you expect to survive every time? As a
society we don't often show sympathy for people who die playing Russian
roulette....

~~~
Daviey
Yes, you are a bad person.

I assume you equally have no sympathy with people that die on non-essential
car journeys that have crashes. Motorcycling, biking, scubadiving?

You, walking down the street are equally playing Russian roulette.

~~~
oneloop
When I'm walking down the street I'm playing Russian roulette? You are either
completely numerically illiterate or so motivated by whatever ideology you're
coming from that you'd go as far as uncritically parrot this such a laughable
false equivalence.

Lets consider just traffic-related accidents for simplicity. About 17 deaths
per 100,000 people per year worldwide. Assuming that a person "walks down the
street" twice a day, that's means that when you walk down the street the
probability that you'll die is 2.5*10^(-7). By comparison the probability of
dying from Russian roulette is between 1/6 and 1/2, depending the rules you're
playing by. You've just made a mistake as big as 6 orders of magnitude. This
alone should get you banned from HN.

~~~
Daviey
You asked if you were a bad person for not having sympathy for a death.. I
believe this to be true.

I totally agree that walking down the street doesn't carry the same magnitude
of risk, but there is measured risk there. Just because someone is
participating in an activity which carries more risk than you consider
acceptable, doesn't mean we shouldn't sympathise for their death.

My analogies were pointing out other activities, which also carry risk... and
you've latched onto the one which obviously has the least risk. The point is,
any activity has a calculated risk.

You made the identical mistake.. by your own analysis, playing Russian
roulette 6 consecutive rounds would guarantee a fatality...

However, just 3 off the top of my head (for the avoidance of doubt, these
people have died 0 times):

    
    
      - Miles Daisher has over 4000 base jumps.
      - Chris McDougall has over 3000.
      - Dan Schilling did over 200 in one day back in 2006.
    

Talking of banning, If you think that my statement broke the rules of HN, then
I ask that you make a complaint against me.

------
schizoidboy
A good friend died a few years ago wingsuit BASE jumping in the alps. It hit
me hard. He was incredibly smart. He was one of the top guys in the sport. He
was careful and deeply researched and understood the physics of wingsuits.
Thus why I think the following quote from the article is dangerous because it
might give the impression to certain people that they will outsmart the
complexities:

"The simple truth is that wingsuit BASE jumpers don’t know what they are
getting into, don’t know how to practice the sport safely, and don’t even know
enough to know how little they know."

------
Spooky23
A: More people are jumping of the sides of things.

This is pretty dumb in general, and particularly so when you aren't a skilled
skydiver. Serious accidents are pretty common even among experienced military
paratroopers.

~~~
mseidl
Skydiving and Base jumping have very little in common

------
fauria
I already sent that a couple days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12405048)

~~~
woliveirajr
I thought HN prevented submiting the same link twice. Doesn't it?

~~~
striking
If something doesn't get enough attention within a certain period of time, it
can be submitted again. Likewise, if it's been a while since HN has seen it,
it can be submitted again.

------
xiphias
3:1 for horizontal vs vertical is quite dangerous, I guess the sport will get
somewhat safer as this ratio improves, but it will take more material research
probably

~~~
manarth
> _" 3:1 for horizontal vs vertical is quite dangerous"_

I would suggest that the danger isn't the glide-ratio, but the proximity to
the ground.

Could better materials improve safety? If there were improvements in the
predictability and consistency of flight characteristics, that might have a
more positive effect, but I can't see improvements in the glide-ratio having
an impact on safety.

------
rdiddly
In order of occurrence, starting with the smart-alecky and moving into the
actually thoughtful (but still probably seen as trollish):

1) From BASE jumping.

2) For no reason.

3) From incomplete cognitive development (risk assessment, awareness of one's
mortality etc.)

4) Because the world economy is sufficiently developed to keep them alive long
enough to die this type of optional/discretionary death.

------
smoyer
It's not like start-up founders and other types of entrepreneurs aren't also
risk takers - different people get their adrenaline rush in different ways.
The difference is that if (when?) you fail, you've lost your money (or someone
else's if you're funded).

~~~
justinator
losing your money (or someone else's money) != dying.

~~~
smoyer
Exactly ... There are many ways an adrenaline junkie can get their fix that
doesn't risk life and limb.

------
hanoz
tl;dr: because they're now doing it in wingsuits.

------
vorotato
I think the big problem is they keep hitting the ground.

------
nadezhda18
why??? maybe because it's a risky sport???

