The athlete’s body was recovered from the river by boat and has been taken to the Kemaliye State Hospital.
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The Dogan news agency said the 37-year-old from southern California had leapt from an altitude of a few 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) when the accident occurred.
Ian Flanders, 37, had already made a successful jump in the during the global Culture and Nature Sports Festival in the Kemaliye district of Erzican in the eastern part of the country.
The world of BASE jumpers and “squirrel suit” flyers is a small one, and getting smaller.
But Flanders’ last jump went wrong, and his luck ran out.
Flanders had performed numerous base jumps before the fatal accident.
The jump was televised on a local TV station. You get to kind of fly over, fly over the town. ‘We landed in the river, which was also actually kind of fun.’.
Karanlik Kanyon (The Dark Canyon) in Northeastern Turkey has up to 600m of depth, making it extremely popular for BASE jumping and thrill-seekers!
“The BASE jumping and, especially the wingsuit community, is facing a real epidemic right now”, Grayson Schaffer, editor of Outside magazine, told CBS News.
Flanders was reportedly working on a documentary about base jumping related deaths. However, parachutes designed to slow their descent had not been deployed, Gediman said.
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Flanders’ death was the 264th base jumper death on record. Two others – Dean Potter and Graham Hunt – died in Yosemite National Park in May.
