Ian Flanders, 37, was killed while taking party in Turkey’s first BASE jumping event on Tuesday.
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The Dogan news agency said the 37-year-old from southern California had leapt from an altitude of some 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) when the accident occurred.
The incident took place on the second day of the annual Festival of Culture and Wildlife Sports in the Kemaliye district at around 5:30 p.m. The athlete, identified as 30-year-old Ian Flanders, was performing a base jump in the Karanlık Canyon.
It’s a gorgeous flight, it’s a handsome view of the town. When he pulled the chute chord, the lines apparently got tangle around his legs and his fatal plummet into the rocky cliff face was all caught on camera.
Friends said the base jump Flander’s attempted when he died was supposed to be easy.
“The BASE jumping and, especially the wingsuit community, is facing a real epidemic right now”, Grayson Schaffer, editor of Outside magazine, told CBS News. It’s a pretty technical jump, but overall it was a lot of fun.
Flanders’ death was the 264th base jumper death on record.
BASE jumping, which stands for Buildings, Antennas, Spans, and Earth, is illegal in all national parks in the U.S., according to the Daily Mail.
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“At the time of his death, Flanders was actually working on a documentary about all of the deaths that have been happening in the BASE world, and… it’s just an incredible tragedy that he would die this way”.
