Our trip to Lecco started Monday September 9th. The first half of the day we spent just hiking to the exit with no gear. I just wanted to laser a few points and check everything out. We then spent the majority of the day eating too much food in town and hanging around the landing area until around sunset time. Which is when the winds had finally calmed down.
At around 6:30pm Monday, we made our first jump at Forcellino. Winds were inconsistent but manageable. After some time on exit myself and 2nd jumper did a 2-way flying high and just getting a feel for the area. Kimball exited next, followed by another wingsuiter and finally a onesie.
Upon opening I realized Kimball was substantially lower and landing before me even though I had previously exited 1-2 minutes prior. I didn't think much of it as I was focused on the landing area and making sure everyone had made it safe.
That evening we all went for dinner together and spoke about going to sleep early so we could wake up, eat and make 2 jumps the following day.
The Next Day: We started the morning at around 10:30am at a coffee shop in Lecco to eat pastries and coffee. We were in absolutely no rush to get to the exit as the conditions were perfect, there were no winds which was a relief as yesterday we were not so lucky. After finishing up. We set out to stage Kimball's car at the landing area and drive up in one car all together for this first load. After about a 30 minute drive to the top of Piani Resinelli parking lot. We got all of our gear and then began the hike at around 12:10pm. We arrived at the exit point at around 12:35pm having taken our time and just talked the whole hike up.
Upon getting to the exit point. The great conditions were a relief in comparison to yesterday. We were stoked and so grateful to all be at this exit point together in Italy. After thinking about the process of gearing up and talking about our plan for the jump it now occurs to me that Kimball had not said much, other than he wanted to fly left and go for his own line.
The 1st jumper of our group was slider off who I pca'd. Then Kimball was the second to exit in front of me. He had a slightly head high exit but was flying left pretty swiftly in about 2 seconds from having exited.
From there I could no longer see him. I proceeded to gear up and talk about our flight plan and exit as I was doing a 2 way with another jumper. Our plan was just to get together, do some freestyle and pull high above the landing area. Once I was under canopy, I saw the 4th and final wingsuiter's exit flight and deployment.
After looking around I saw everyone coming into land but was not aware of Kimball's canopy because I thought he had already landed. Upon landing it had set in that something was wrong and Kimball's location was unknown. No one had seen his canopy. About 20-30 minutes of no contact with Kimball I decided to call the emergency line and a helicopter arrived about 30 minutes later. The search took a long time involving communication with the helicopter to try and pinpoint where he was with FindmyPhone as well a thermal scanner and an additional crew on foot. At around 4pm it was confirmed they had found kimball.
Kimball had not been to this jump before except for the evening prior. Kimball had not looked at any previous videos, google earth or any other tools before the first jump. After coming across the video of his previous flight and the way he flew the first jump with such little awareness of the actual terrain below it was hard to understand what more he wanted to do on this jump.
Kimball spoke about cutting his trip short and getting back to the US. Which leads me to believe this was one of the last jumps of his trip here and it might have influenced the way he flew. Based on the 360 footage from the slider down jumper who had exited before Kimball, he can be seen making a quick left turn, traversing across as high as possible without maintaining much speed. Seemed like he was almost at the stall point, but just barely makes it over the second ridge. Same ridge as the previous day but significantly higher. He then proceeds to make a right turn that cost him everything. It seemed like he was relying on the potential steepness of terrain to relieve him of his glide over to the second ridge.
After about 6 seconds of having made the right turn, pretty blind to what was coming next Kimball can be seen impacting and then disappearing behind the ridge.
The major failures this day:
1. Jumping an exit for the first time and flying a flat highly committed line. Not much more he could do on his second jump there.
2. Kimball was willing to take risks and seemed okay with the unknown.
3. Kimball chose to jump into a situation where he hoped it would all work out in his favour without having any repetition or consistency.
4. This was probably around Kimball's 20th wingsuit base jump. Not aware of this until now.
5. I should have been more aware of his flying and wish I had spoken with him about his flight plan before ever walking up to that exit.
Still currently dealing with the local police to retrieve the footage of his last jump from his GoPro to give more a detailed report.
Kimball is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and it felt like there wasn't a single thing you couldn't talk about with him. He was as real as they come and it is a shame to see complacency and lack of preparation get someone so capable.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../american-base-jumper...
https://www.tgcom24.mediaset.it/.../abbadia-lariana-lecco...
https://www.ilgiorno.it/.../base-jumper-morto-abbadia...
https://milano.repubblica.it/.../base_jumper_morto.../...
https://www.today.it/cronaca/base-jumper-morto-lecco.html
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.