Thomas Klingler

Thomas was current, experienced with his suit and had at least 25 jumps off High Ultimate. The day before he did 3 jumps of HU and one of High Nose and was happy with his results. On this jump, he was first on a two-way with a wingsuiter. He did a one-step exit as usual, had an average push, slightly unstable. He brought his arms back very soon, legs slightly bent which caused an over rotation/scorpion. Thomas corrected his angle quickly to a fully extended but flat tracking position. The suit started to pressurize but no forward movement and he clipped the very last part of the ledge with his lower legs. Only 20cm were missing to clear it into clean airspace. This caused a big momentum and sent him into a violent unstable rotation. He went back into tracking position but was probably disoriented or in shock and impacted the wall with nothing out. Canopy came out on impact. Coroner said Thomas was dead immediately.
What's to take away from this incident:
1) If Thomas had done a running exit instead of a slower one-step exit, he might have had enough forward momentum to clear the talus even with his scorpion exit.
2) Leaving Hands in front for longer time when in Scorpion position, would probably help him to not rotate to the side and give him much faster transition into the track position, which would let him to out track the ledge.
The correction into a flat angle was the cause for clipping the talus. Staying in head down until passing the talus might have saved him from clipping his feet.
3) Between clipping feet and impact 6 seconds passed. A panic pull might have saved his life. Thomas was a great guy, always friendly and smiling and he will be missed.
4) One more thing to add, it was the first day when you cant jump after 9am because of paragliders in the area, so people want to jump before 9am and at this time i think the conditions are the worst, you dont have any lift. Same day i did one jump around 7.50am and i had the feeling that after exit i was closer to the wall than usually.

Thomas had a safe and steady progression over the last years in the sport. He put in the work and never tried to cut any corners. He didnt push his limits and was very aware of what he was capable of and what he wasn't. Thomas was a great guy, always friendly and caring about everyone. He always had a huge smile on his face. His positive energy and attitude touched everyone who met him. It was impossible not to have a good time and not to laugh when he was around. He will be missed.