BFL186 | 23.6.2012

Hervé Le Gallou

from France51 years

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Unknown

BASE SEASONS

Unknown

SKYDIVES

Unknown

WS SKYDIVES

Unknown

BASE JUMPS

Unknown

WS BASE JUMPS
  • Date & Time: 23.6.2012
  • Location: Obiou, Isre, France
  • Category: BASE Fatality
  • Object Type: Earth
  • Cause Of Death: Impact in terminal freefall
  • Clothing - Suit: Unknown - Unspecified WSUnknown Wingsuit by Unspecified
  • Canopy: Unknown
  • Container: Unknown
  • Packing & Setup: Slider Up BOC Vertical
  • Weather: Sunny, Winds light and variable
  • Possible Factors: Emergency low pull, Extracted Pilot Chute too late, Loss of speed-glide, Proximity flying

What do we believe happened?

Following your request, here is the data (strictly technical) on this fatality, :

 

(I jumped a few minutes before Hervé and hiked back to where he impacted afterwards)
We found no eye witness of the accident.

From this exit you can pass a ridge on your right, then depending on performance you can either fly to the left in two different valleys, or keep flying to the right and try to pass a grassy, flat and long plateau further away and join another valley. If performance is finally not good enough to pass this plateau, you have time to pull and land there.
According to jumpers at the exit, Hervé's flight was very performing, he was high above the first ridge on the right. Consequently he was in a good position to try to clear the plateau. What we suppose is that his performance dropped in the second ! part of his flight (it happened to him sometimes) and that he couldn't pass the plateau.

His canopy was retrieved with slider still attached and brakes stowed, due to lack of eye witness we don't know if the impact made the canopy come out of container or if the impact occured at the beginning of opening sequence. So we don't know what exactly happened : no pull / late pull / failed attempt to pull / other malfunction.

The only sure thing, considering the impact location, is that it wasn't a failed proximity attempt.http://www.ledauphine.com/actualite/...A-495120334A94

Contact

Missing something?

Can you help us with incident interpretation? We are interested in any details regarding personal experience, gear, weather conditions and any other circumstances related to the incident.

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