John Van Horne

JVH Incident Report - Brevent - 29 Jun 2016
On the cable car ride up to Brevent, JVH and another jumper decided to do a two way, JVH would follow in whichever line the other jumper wanted to fly. The other jumper proposed the rockstar line, which JVH had followed him on once previously. They then discussed exit positions and angles, and flight procedures for when someone is “camera flying". (Jumper on the left jumps first, pushes more perpendicular to the rock, takes the turn around the pilar wide, and flies at 70-80% in the transition before turning it on and entering the line. Jumper on the right exits second, and pushes parallel to or at slightly more of an angle than the first jumper, then cuts the corner so as to catch up to the first jumper as quickly as possible.) JVH expressed that he would not be following closely behind though, instead he would give a couple seconds and follow loosely to just observe the other jumper flying the line. On previous multi-ways on Brevent, JVH had given at least 1-2 seconds before following off, and would not fly aggressively, usually staying above the treetops.

At the top, as they were gearing up, since JVH didn’t want to follow closely anyway, the other jumper asked which side he preferred to exit from. JVH chose the right, so the other jumper took the left. The other jumper then proposed that since John didn’t need to catch up to him, he would exit off and fly the line as he usually would without a camera flyer, and John agreed. Although on the way up they had discussed exit angles from these positions when the jumper on the right is flying camera, there was no further discussion at the exit regarding exit angles.

The first jumper makes his countdown and pushes off with nothing out of the ordinary. JVH jumps approximately 1.5 seconds after, and basically pushes to the same axis as the first jumper. About 4 seconds into his jump he hits the first jumper's burble. There is some shaking and a clear loss of power, and he swerves slightly left by about 10 degrees. John makes two grunts, likely realizing that he is in trouble. At a pitch (AoA) “nose up” he turns very quickly right, about 90 degrees, and decides to try to fly it out. Shortly after his pitch and direction change, at around 7-8 seconds, we hear what sounds like leg wing flapping. He doesn’t advance more than 120m horizontally from the point where he turned, and impacts 10 seconds into his jump in the snow in the bottom of the couloir.