Base jumping

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Base jumpers jumping off a building in Shanghai
Base jumping from Istanbul Sapphire

Base jumping , also spelled BASE or BASE jumping, object jump or object jumping, is parachuting from solid objects. The first part of the word is usually used as an acronym for:

  • B : building, building,
  • A : antenna, transmission mast ,
  • S : span, bridge and
  • E : earth (natural elevations such as rock walls, cliffs, etc.).

On the other hand, one translates English. base with pad and jump with jump .
People who practice this sport are called base jumpers or object jumpers .

A special form of base jumping is jumping off objects with wing suits, so-called wingsuits .

Differences from skydiving

  1. Object jump systems are specially made for this sport. The umbrellas are large, specially reinforced and modified seven-cell cells. Depending on the height of the jump and the time it falls, the packing and composition of the individual components (for example an auxiliary parachute) can be individually combined.
  2. At low jumping heights, the jumper has the auxiliary parachute to open the parachute ( deploy ) in his hand when jumping. In the case of very low jumping heights, different types of release are used for particularly quick opening of the umbrella.
  3. The object jumper often does not carry a reserve parachute , as this would not be able to act in time in an emergency anyway.

Legal situation

Object jumping is treated differently in legal terms in different countries. In many countries, jumping is prohibited without a state permit, which must be applied for individually. It is tolerated in other countries. In Dubai, for example, penalties up to and including the expulsion of tourists are imposed. On the other hand, you can use certain spots in Switzerland ( Lauterbrunnen ), Italy, France ( Chamonix ) or Norway without a permit. In any case, the house rules must be observed when jumping from objects in private ownership.

In the USA, object jumps are usually prohibited for insurance reasons. The US state is also very sensitive when jumping in its national parks and pursues jumpers who are present without permission. In order to avoid imminent sentences, which can range from heavy fines to several months in prison, many base jumpers in the national parks jump in the very early morning hours or just before dark to avoid the park rangers. They significantly increase the risk of accidents due to poor light, as extreme athletes discovered after the death of Dean Potter , who had a fatal accident while jumping in Yosemite National Park at one of these times . Notable exceptions in the US, where jumps are allowed, are the Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls on the Snake River in Idaho and, always on the third Saturday in October ("Bridge Day"), the New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville , West Virginia .

history

Up until the 1980s there were only a few people who jumped from solid objects with "normal" parachute equipment. Among the first "object jumpers" were Carl Boenish and his wife Jean Boenish, who already performed all four types of jump (bridges, antennas, rocks and high-rise buildings).

In his travel books, Marco Polo reports on Chinese artists who threw themselves from towers with umbrella-like structures made of silk and landed safely.

  • 1912: The Austrian Franz Reichelt jumped to his death from the Eiffel Tower with a self-made forerunner of today's wingsuits .
  • 1963: Hartmut Huber from Munich jumped a total of five times from the 68 m high Mangfall Bridge with a T-10R round canopy parachute that had been held open by passers - by . This is the first surviving object jump worldwide.
  • 1965: Erich Felbermayr , dentist from Wels , jumped from a rock face of the Kleiner Zinne in the Dolomites .
  • 1966: Wolf Weitzenböck jumped from another rock face in the Dolomites.
  • 1966: Michael Pelkey ​​and Brian Lee Schubert jumped off El Capitan , a rock face in Yosemite National Park .
  • 1970: Berthold Rubin from Cologne jumped from the 190 m high Europabrücke near Innsbruck.
  • 1975: Owen Quinn jumped from the World Trade Center in New York .
  • 1976: Rick Sylvester jumped about 1,100 meters from Mount Asgard for the opening credits of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and made base jumps known to a wide audience.
  • In 1981 Phil Smith, Phil Mayfield, Jean and Carl Boenish coined the term base from b uilding ( building ), a ntenna ( transmitter mast ), s pan ( bridge ) and e arth ( rock ).
  • 1981: Phil Smith and Phil Mayfield were the first parachutists in the world to jump all four object categories with four jumps together.
  • 1982: Klaus Heller from Munich completed the first BASE jump defined as such in Germany from the 185 m high Kochertal bridge.
  • 1984: Rainer Nowak (pseudonym: Raykawon) was the first to jump from the Olympic tower in Munich . Around the same time BASE jumps were reported from Trollveggen in Norway.
  • On or shortly before November 28, 2017, Frederic Fugen and Vincent Reffet (both, aka: Team Soulflyers) managed to land in the hold of an airplane for the first time after jumping from the 4,158 m high Jungfrau in Switzerland - after jumping from a mountain Pilatus Porter , also flying slowly downwards at about 135 km / h , by flying in through the cargo hold door on the side. Project name: A Door in the Sky.

Spectacular jumps

  • In 1990, Russell Powell, a former Royal Marine , jumped from the Whispering Gallery of St Paul's Cathedral in London from a height of 102 feet (about 31.1 m), the lowest jump within a building to date. He escaped unrecognized with a waiting car and after his identity was published (through an entry in the Guinness Book of Records ) he could not be prosecuted by the police, as his act was already barred.
  • On August 2, 1991, the journalist Alfred Waibel jumped from one of the cable car cabins at the Karrenseilbahn under notarial supervision, 72 meters above the treetops, at about 860 m above sea level.
  • On December 1, 1999, the Austrian base jumper Felix Baumgartner jumped from the right arm of the Christ statue on the Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro with a parachute. He had previously let himself be locked in the grounds, then climbed up a rope that had been shot with a crossbow .
  • In July 2004, 30 jumpers jumped simultaneously from the Ostankino tower in Moscow, setting a new record for the largest successful simultaneous jump from a fixed object.
  • On January 31, 2005, ten jumpers from the "Association of German Object Jumpers" rushed out of the dome of the largest self-supporting hall in the world, the Tropical Island Resort in Briesen-Brand near Berlin. With this they achieved an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest simultaneous jump within a building. The jump height in the building was 107 meters.
  • In October 2005, American Miles Daisher jumped 57 times in 24 hours from Perrine Bridge in Idaho . The bridge, approved for base jumping, lies over the Snake River and provided the starting platform for the project. After every jump he ran back the 140 meter difference in altitude.
  • At the turn of the year 2005/2006, the Australian Gary Cunningham jumped 133 times in 24 hours from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur . Cunningham ended the 24 hours with his packers and helpers with a joint jump. With over 1100 object jumps, he is one of the most experienced jumpers worldwide.
  • In June 2006, the Australian couple Glenn Singleman and Heather Swan jumped from Meru Peak in India, which is more than 6600 meters high . According to their own statements, they had set a new record. For the two-minute jump they had previously climbed Meru Peak in 22 days.
  • In 2007 the Belgian Johan Vervoort jumped from a tower from a height of only 22 meters. This should be the lowest “safe” jumped height at which the parachute opened.
  • On December 11, 2007 Felix Baumgartner jumped as the first person from the tallest building in the world at the time, the Taipei 101 (508 m, height to the roof 448 m) in Taipei .
  • In November 2008, the two Frenchmen Fred Fugen and Vincent Reffet jumped from the Burj Dubai (now Burj Khalifa ), which was under construction ; It is assumed that a jump level is 600 meters high.
  • Just one day after the opening, on January 5, 2010, two Emiratis jumped legally from the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world at 828 meters. The jump height was the 160th floor at 672 meters above ground.
  • In 2011, Jojo Rose ran over a 35 m long rotor blade of a wind power plant ( Vestas V80) that was positioned approximately horizontally in both directions and jumped off the trailing edge at a height of 95 m near the tip of the blade.
  • On May 5, 2013, the Russian Valeri Rosow jumped from the pillar head in the south face of the Changtse opposite the north face of Mount Everest from a height of 7220 m. With a wingsuit specially developed for the low air density, he fell and flew down to the Rongpu Glacier more than 1,000 meters below , landed by parachute and thus achieved the world record for the base jump from the greatest height.
  • On August 17, 2013, two base jumpers with equipment smuggled into the emergency exit jumped from the railing of the observation tower on the Pyramidenkogel , Carinthia and escaped unrecognized. One of them, a carpenter from Burgenland, advocated the acceptance of base jumping as a sport in an anonymous interview.
  • Jürgen Mühling (aka Mahle) jumped in a cave in Portugal - on sand - the low height of 26.80 m.

Deaths

  • Between 1981 and 2020, 383 people (as of January 2, 2020) died as a result of an object jump. Around 15% of this is in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland. In this valley, which is very popular with base jumpers (between 15,000 and 20,000 jumps are counted per season), 59 jumpers (as of July 30, 2019) have already lost their lives, which has repeatedly triggered discussions about a ban.
  • In June 2000, the British stuntman and actor Terry Forrestal died as a result of a base jumping accident on the Kjerag rock plateau in Norway.
  • On November 11, 2009, the Swiss base jumper Ueli Gegenschatz had an accident while jumping from the Sunrise Tower in Zurich and succumbed to his injuries two days later.
  • A Base Jump World Cup planned for the Danube Tower in Vienna in early September 2013 was not approved by the MA64 authorities. Instead, Bernhard S. jumped from the pole wall from Hochschwab , Styria, from a height of 2,150 meters and hit the rock while 3 jumpers arrived safely. According to a list on the Internet, he is the 217th base jumper dead worldwide.
  • On June 6, 2014, the Spanish TV chef Darío Barrio died while jumping in Segura de la Sierra ( Jaén province ).
  • On May 16, 2015, American extreme athlete Dean Potter and his climbing partner Graham Hunt died while flying in a wingsuit in Yosemite National Park .
  • On August 17, 2016, two base jumpers had a fatal accident near Lauterbrunnen by hitting a rock face in various places. One of them, the South Tyrolean Uli Emanuele (1985-2016), became famous for a wingsuit flight through a 2.8 meter wide hole in a rock.
  • On November 11, 2017, the experienced Russian extreme athlete Valeri Rosow was killed on the Ama Dablam in Nepal while jumping from a height of 6,812 m.

Films and literature

  • The base jumpers from Lauterbrunnen , documentary, SF Switzerland 2007, insights into the life of jumpers
  • In the documentary Freifall (Switzerland 2014) by Mirjam von Arx , the author tells a love story with a base jumper.
  • The crime scene: Schwerelos (WDR 2015) made base jumping as a sport and metaphorical "image of our modern performance society" the subject of the main evening program on ARD television.
  • Wingmen , Documentary 2015, Xtreme Video
  • Ikarus - The dream of flying , documentary, SF Switzerland 2016, by Alain Godet, SF Switzerland 2007

Web links

Commons : Base jumping  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Did rules, not risk, cause Dean Potter's Base jumping death? In: The Guardian , May 22, 2015, accessed May 22, 2015.
  2. ↑ Erich Felbermayr - Eine Legende ( Memento of the original from August 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. skydive-wels.at, accessed April 9, 2017. - Jumped from the Europabrücke and landed on mountain peaks with skis.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.skydive-wels.at
  3. ↑ Base jumpers jumped from the mountain into the belly of an aircraft orf.at, November 29, 2017, accessed November 29, 2017.
  4. ↑ 2 wingsuit flyers BASE jump into a plane in mid-air. | A Door In The Sky youtube.com, Red Bull, November 28, 2017, accessed November 29, 2017 - Video
  5. ^ Frank Stamford: Extreme Sports Base Jumping. In: Al Shindagah Online. Retrieved November 5, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Trend sport base jumping - the addiction to jump , Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 27, 2008.
  7. ↑ Australians jump from 6600 meter summit , report in Spiegel, June 9, 2006.
  8. ↑ a b Dubai news: First legal parachute jump from the Burj Khalifa from the 160th floor , destination Dubai, January 7, 2010.
  9. ↑ Alia Al Theeb and Kevin Scott: Base jumper leaps off Burj Khalifa. In: gulfnews.com. January 6, 2010, accessed November 5, 2012 .
  10. ^ Daredevil makes record-breaking leap from Mount Everest. The Telegraph, accessed May 29, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Exclusive: First interview of the Basejumper orf.at, August 21, 2013, accessed March 14, 2017.
  12. ↑ Pictures website VDO, accessed March 14, 2017.
  13. ↑ BASE Fatality List , list of people killed in object jump (English)
  14. ↑ Visit to the pilgrimage site of a sport in which only mistakes are forbidden , Tages-Anzeiger Online / Newsnet, May 29, 2012.
  15. ↑ Nau, July 30, 2019
  16. ↑ Base jumping cannot be forbidden , discussion about the jumping ban in Lauterbrunnen Valley, Jungfrau Zeitung, October 11, 2007.
  17. ↑ Ronan Bennett: Terry Forrestal: Gentle stunt man dedicated to a macho art. guardian.co.uk, June 27, 2000, accessed November 5, 2012 .
  18. ↑ Skydiver falls 700 meters to his death oe24.at, September 7, 2013, accessed March 14, 2017.
  19. ↑ Base jumper Uli Emanuele in a fatal accident , orf.at, August 18, 2016, accessed August 18, 2016.
  20. ↑ Drama when jumping from 7000 meters! Russian extreme athlete dies in the Himalayas , November 12, 2017, FOCUS Online, accessed December 12, 2017.
  21. ↑ The base jumpers from Lauterbrunnen - athletes, weirdos, addicts ( memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Documentation, Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) - not available on August 22, 2017.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.srf.ch
  22. ↑ FREIFALL - A love story. Accessed December 12, 2017 (German).
  23. ↑ How did the idea come about to talk about parachutists and especially about "base jumping" in "Tatort: ​​Schwerelos"? , Interview with Ben Braeunlich (screenplay) on daserste.de from May 3, 2015.
  24. ↑ XTreme Video: WINGMEN | Wingsuit & BASE Jumping Film | Official trailer. June 18, 2015, accessed December 12, 2017 .
  25. ↑ Ikarus - The dream of flying , srf.ch