BFL
French

BFL378 · 27.9.2019

Gerome Guala

53-Year-Old French

Read more

20

BASE seasons

BASE jumps

WS BASE jumps

Skydives

WS skydives

Incident

Incident category:
BASE Fatality
ID:
BFL378
Object:
Earth
Cause of death:
Low pull
Date:
27. 09. 2019
Time:
10:30
Exit point:
France › Choranche › Molaire

Other incidents at this location: BFL163, BFL198

Exit type:
Short Start

Personal

Name:
Gerome Guala
Gender:
Male
Nationality:
French
Age:
53
Experience:

Equipment & Setup

Canopy:
Canopy size:
Container:
Suit:
RbaseG › XXX
Packing:
Slider Up
Deployment:
BOC

Circumstances

Weather:
Sunny Winds light and variable
Factors:
Extracted Pilot Chute too late Proximity flying Altitude awareness

Description

Description: Accident happened on the 27th of sept but he has passed away in hospital on the 4th Oct due to complications. More information will be made available within next 24-48 hours but it is understood that he was wearing a one piece tracking suit (XXX)
Update :
It was his first molaire in a one piece track suit for Gerome.
He had got the briefing that we always give to the people here for the first time.
"On the last part before arriving at the power lines, you need to take a crucial decision.
Either you have speed and you see you are going to make the landing area easy and you continue, or you have a small doubt, you pull and you try again next time"
From outside view, gerome lost his speed and decided to keep going anyway ...
Between the power lines and the road he was too low to pull, so he waited to pass the road and pull after.
Unfortunately, he was too low and impacted at line stretch.
Over the last few seasons Gerome has mainly jumped only "short" jump, jump lauterbrunnen style, 20-25s where people are used to build up speed, release all the speed and then when run out of speed it s time to pull.
Unfortunately, this is a mistake which happened alot lately with the one piece tracker.
Then when they come to jump were the "crux" is around 30s they often already lost their speed.
Please people take a lesson from this, take the time to get used to longer flight before attempting commiting jumps
Gerome was a very respected montain guide and very nice human, this is a huge loss.
Gerome was the most experience of our group with a life time of expertise in the mountains.

Gallery

Lost, but not forgotten...