Jonathan messaged me on Thursday to mention he was going to check out the Big Willard Platform exit. I asked him if he was aware of the prior incident at that exit where a very talented jumper had a close call trying to fly out the center of the valley. He was aware of the incident.
The next day he messaged me at 10:39am to say he was looking for the Big Willard Platform exit. By 11:31am he had found the higher exit that has a rope and awkward footing. He shared that he felt the conditions were okay already, but he wanted to wait for boosting updraft. He sent me photos of the spot he was at as well as a lower spot with better footing he found earlier. He shared he intended to go from the higher spot. He sent me a video of another flyer going from the lower exit, flying closer to the center of the valley, and appearing to fly max glide to cross a much lower point on the ridge.
I shared that I thought that pilot missed out on a bunch of available lift by not hugging the wall tighter off exit. At 12:20pm he messaged that he was gearing up to and would be jumping in a minute, and said he would talk to me when he gets down. Jonathan and I had never met in person but he would write to me about his adventures searching for new exits. This was the first time he had messaged indicating that he would check in upon landing; I was surprised but told him to enjoy his flight. At 12:42pm I sent him an “All good?”.
At 1:12pm I called his employer but did not receive an answer. At 1:14pm I called a good friend of his to check if there was anyone else he might message to inform about a jump. At 1:21pm I received a call back from his employer and explained I was trying to find if there was anyone else he would normally message about his jump that I could double check with before calling the Willard police. During that call we agreed it was time and would not hurt to call the police. I called the police at 1:32pm and relayed what happened and that he might be injured in the canyon.
Simultaneously, his employer contacted local search and rescue via a staff member who participates on SAR. A friend and co-worker located his car by roughly 2pm without a sign of Jonathan. He then communicated he would begin traveling up the canyon to search for Jonathan. I made a diagram of three possible flight paths Jonathan may have taken and sent it to the Willard Sergeant and Jonathan’s employer who had contact with SAR.
At 3:30pm I received a call from the Willard Sergeant indicating they had a bird in the air searching for Jonathan. I looked through his videos and found a screen grab of what was likely the canopy he’d have used for this flight, and sent a description of his mountain wingsuit to the Willard Sergeant and his employer who had contact with SAR. His coworker called me at 8:17pm to indicate that Jonathan had been found deceased and recovered via hoist. I received a separate call from a police officer at 8:55pm informing me of the same and they had recovered video and watched the video.
A description of the video should be included here once a jumper has reviewed the video:�� <TO BE COMPLETED>� While waiting for Jonathan’s message, I checked the forecast and weather report for the exit.
Winds were reported at 5-6kmh out of the west with gusts up to 21kmh. The ideal wind for this exit is out of the southwest. The ridge to crossover runs on the southwest to northeast line and the critical crossover section of that ridge is an east-facing wall. It’s possible Jonathan had a sight picture showing him clearing the ridge and then hit cool sinky air from west wind just before crossing the ridge.
Jonathan had recently been opening exits in Lamoille and the Wasatch and was flying proficiently. This exit requires specific conditions to safely reach the main landing area and the ability to be decisive about committing to a ridge crossover or a parachute deployment over rough terrain.
While Jonathan was a talented flyer, it’s likely he would have benefited from more experience before attempting this flight to inform the intuition needed for making such a quick judgement call off exit.