This is the opening line of a candid interview between the owner of TopGunBASE, which is a wing-suit BASE jumping blog aimed at improving safety in this extreme sport, and a wing suit BASE jumper called Eric who ‘died’.
The interview is extremely useful, not because it is about a high risk sport in which the participant nearly died, but because of the candidness of the survivor, highlighting that he was way out of his depth in terms of experience and attitude prior to the jump in question and that by demonstrating his lack of internal awareness, he hopes to change the attitudes of others who might follow in his rapid footsteps.
"If I can help even one person stay alive by not repeating my mistakes, it’s worth the public confession of my less-than-stellar progression. I owe it to everybody who’s following in a path similar to mine. They deserve my honest attempt at deconstructing how I ended up flying into trees with now way out"
Eric managed to travel nearly a 100m through trees as he decelerated, breaking through an 8” tree trunk and chopping the top 20’ off on the way. He woke up in hospital unaware of what had happened!
The link to the full interview can be found at the end of this blog.
Eric describes his rapid progression through skydiving, wing suit flying and WS BASE jumping and the fact that he didn’t have a mentor to rein him in when he was going to fast, or to highlight where he needed to develop or just say no! The friends that he did have, both inside and outside of WS BASE, recognised that he was going to be a bloody mess on the ground pretty soon. Those outside the sport who provided guidance he dismissed because ‘they didn’t know about BASE jumping, and those inside weren’t as assertive as they could have been. Maybe that is because the culture of the sport doesn’t necessary allow that.
There are a number of lines from the interview which I am going to pull out and discuss in detail because I believe they have direct relevance to diving.
How many times have you flown the Cheese Grater line?
Maybe about ten times, but usually I disconnect half-way down the line, so I can make my normal LZ by the lumber yard area. On one previous occasion, I stayed on the line longer, and still made the same LZ. This was my second time staying on the line longer than normal. ..At that moment, I actually felt fine to turn onto the Cheese Grater line. Based on my previous jumps on that line, I honestly thought I would have no problems.
Maybe about ten times, but usually I disconnect half-way down the line, so I can make my normal LZ by the lumber yard area. On one previous occasion, I stayed on the line longer, and still made the same LZ. This was my second time staying on the line longer than normal. ..At that moment, I actually felt fine to turn onto the Cheese Grater line. Based on my previous jumps on that line, I honestly thought I would have no problems.
This is the start of normalisation of deviance. A ‘rule’ exists and the boundary starts to get pushed. Once something has been exceeded and nothing goes wrong, then a new boundary is created as the baseline. This baseline can shift. The important part is that it is an unconscious shift and only when something goes wrong, can we see how from the original baseline we have moved from.
Looks like you had an ‘out’ to the left about 10 seconds prior to impact, and you didn’t take it. Why?
I hadn’t planned for an ‘out’. I honestly didn’t expect to need one. I was just thinking about flying straight to my normal LZ. In hindsight, I think I was stuck on my ‘gameplan’ and obviously didn’t have the awareness to adjust inflight, especially when staying in the line longer than normal.
I hadn’t planned for an ‘out’. I honestly didn’t expect to need one. I was just thinking about flying straight to my normal LZ. In hindsight, I think I was stuck on my ‘gameplan’ and obviously didn’t have the awareness to adjust inflight, especially when staying in the line longer than normal.
Not planning for the unexpected. When things go right all the time (or rather they didn’t end up in an injury), we often forget that they don’t always go that way. Looking at risk management research and execution at a higher level, there are organisations known as ‘High Reliability Organisations’ who have a ‘Chronic Unease Towards Failure’. This isn’t paranoia, but rather they are proactive in looking for small changes which may lead to an accident. They look for weak signals, like throw-away comments, that on closer inspection lead to bigger questions that need to be asked. Same in the case. Eric had already seen that he was slower than the others but had asked the question ‘why’ and he didn’t have anyone close enough and assertiveness to provide the rationale. ‘Because’ is an extremely powerful word. Most people want evidence when they are asked or told to do something different.
There’s a difference between 1) Awareness of something wrong and not doing anything about it, and 2) NOT being aware of something wrong at all… and I guess that’s where I’m digging in the weeds and trying to figure out which is at play here.
I think it’s a little bit of both. Towards the end of my flight, I started feeling I was a bit low, but not so low that I couldn’t make it to my usual LZ
You didn’t pitch. The primary stow band was still engaged on your lines when PGHM got to you. Knowing that you didn’t pitch, what’s your reaction?
I still thought I was going to make it to my LZ. By the time the ‘Oh ****!’ window arrived, it was too late. I felt my chances of flying this out were better than pitching early in a ****** spot.
I think it’s a little bit of both. Towards the end of my flight, I started feeling I was a bit low, but not so low that I couldn’t make it to my usual LZ
You didn’t pitch. The primary stow band was still engaged on your lines when PGHM got to you. Knowing that you didn’t pitch, what’s your reaction?
I still thought I was going to make it to my LZ. By the time the ‘Oh ****!’ window arrived, it was too late. I felt my chances of flying this out were better than pitching early in a ****** spot.
The scary part is that right up until the last second or so Eric was convincing himself that it was all ok and finding excuses about why he behaved in the manner he did. The scary part is because this is an issue all humans have, unless we are acutely aware of it and can call ‘stop’, even then it isn’t easy and requires a support team or environment for it to happen. This is known as the sunk-cost fallacy, we don’t want to lose what we have already committed to. I wrote a whole blog about this here
Taking this all into account, what was your honest assessment of your speed capabilities when they talked to you about flying too slow?
I just brushed off their small comment about speed because they didn’t address it like it was a big issue. That flight itself didn’t feel different from my previous flights elsewhere. I wouldn’t say I was lying to myself, but I honestly thought my WS BASE performance was good enough. I knew I was slower than some people, and honestly tried to keep that in mind when considering new jumps or lines. I might not have been the best, or better than anyone, but I definitely felt good enough to fly most lines. I now realize I was getting complacent really fast. Although I had been keeping a margin for error, once I got to an advanced place like Chamonix, the margin for error dropped considerably without me fully realizing it. I thought I was good enough, fast enough, and knew what I was doing… I let myself get complacent and too comfortable flying slow. It turned out to kill me, except that I lived.
I just brushed off their small comment about speed because they didn’t address it like it was a big issue. That flight itself didn’t feel different from my previous flights elsewhere. I wouldn’t say I was lying to myself, but I honestly thought my WS BASE performance was good enough. I knew I was slower than some people, and honestly tried to keep that in mind when considering new jumps or lines. I might not have been the best, or better than anyone, but I definitely felt good enough to fly most lines. I now realize I was getting complacent really fast. Although I had been keeping a margin for error, once I got to an advanced place like Chamonix, the margin for error dropped considerably without me fully realizing it. I thought I was good enough, fast enough, and knew what I was doing… I let myself get complacent and too comfortable flying slow. It turned out to kill me, except that I lived.