Andrey Markelov

On the morning of the 31st, I was part of a group of three wingsuit jumpers, we hiked up to Corna Frea, a quite technical exit point above Riva del Garda, Italy. Great visibility, north wind in the area, we made it to the exit point easily and we were not tired after the 2+ hours hike. We decided to go for a two way wingsuit jump and I was jumping second, behind the deceased jumper. This exit point can be quite intimidating, a correct push with proper heading is very important, there are clearly visible powerlines a few hundred meters below the exit point and this can make people nervous, but the deceased had already jumped from this exit point in the past and he looked ok at the exit, quite focused and committed.
He jumped first and I followed, half second later. His exit looked fine, normal push, correct heading, no drastic change of angle in the recovery arc, he seemed ok, but lower than me in the early phase of the jump. A few seconds later, as he was flying toward the first ledge to the left, he made a drastic 90° turn to the right, possibly to avoid flying too close to this ledge, he then corrected his heading by turning again 90° left, back on the normal flight path, but he was, at this point, flying very low and pretty slow. He kept flying straight toward powerlines for several seconds, but unfortunately he was not high enough to fly past them and impacted on one of them, tumbling for another hundred meters until he came to a rest in the forest.