Search for missing BASE jumper comes up empty
HANSEN -- His friends warned him not to jump. It was too dark. The wind wasn't right. The water was too high.
But 29-year-old Roger Butler, an experienced BASE jumper who once parachuted from the Stratosphere hotel tower in Las Vegas, apparently died Sunday after jumping from the Hansen Bridge and disappearing in the water.
"All of them tried to talk him out of it, but he had to do it," said Cpl. Daron Brown of the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office. "The guy was experienced, but he made a bad choice."
With the help of a brand-new underwater camera, search and rescue teams from Jerome and Twin Falls counties continued searching the frigid Snake River Monday for signs of Butler and his parachute, but the search was called off as sundown neared. Water flow at the Minidoka Dam was stopped late Monday to lower the water level and aid searchers when they continue this morning.
The counties don't know the cost of the search.
Butler, who had made more than 600 BASE jumps, spent Sunday with three friends parachuting from the Perrine Bridge, a popular spot for BASE jumpers because it is legal to jump there. BASE stands for building, antenna, span and earth.
In October 1999, this same group had parachuted with a woman the day before she broke her back in a jumping accident at the Perrine Bridge, said Nancy Howell, spokeswoman for the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office.
The group was headed back to Ogden, Utah, Sunday before stopping at the Hansen Bridge, where jumping also is legal. With his friends videotaping, Butler jumped from the west side of the bridge and glided toward the water without a hitch, but he ran into trouble after hitting the river, Howell said.
It wasn't immediately clear what happened, but shortly after landing in the water Butler and his chute disappeared below the surface. Neither has been seen since, she said.
Butler was not wearing a life jacket, and he was jumping into a highly inaccessible area of the Snake River Canyon, Brown said.
"BASE jumping is like whitewater rafting," he said. "It's a self-saving sport. You can't expect to jump off a bridge and have someone come and save you."
Butler's taste for daring jumps was passed down from his father, a parachuter for 30 years, said Paul Butler, an uncle who drove to Twin Falls after the accident.
Roger Butler watched his father nearly die in a 1998 parachuting accident that almost cost the older Butler his leg. But a year later father and son were parachuting together again during a Fourth of July celebration, Paul Butler said.
"He just loved to do this," Paul Butler said of his nephew. "He loved to fly."
Six killed in mid-air plane crash in Germany
Six Germans have been killed when two small aircraft collided in clear skies over the southern German state of Bavaria, police said. The crash involved a one-man glider and a Cessna plane with a pilot and four passengers who were planning to do tandem parachute jumps, a police spokesman said.
The wreckage of the two aircraft landed in a corn field just outside the rural town of Lechsend, near Donauwoerth north of Munich.
The Cessna was burning on the ground and extinguished by firefighters.
"All we know at this point is that the two aircraft crashed into each other in mid-air," police spokesman Josef Bauer said.
"The wreckage landed in a field just outside of the town. Luckily no one on the ground was hurt."
The collision occurred shortly after 12:00 GMT.
The victims, five men and one woman, were aged between 21 and 52.
The plane was carrying four passengers, including the one woman, who were planning to do parachute jumps.
Both aircraft, which were completely destroyed on impact with the ground, had taken off from nearby air fields.
"We don't know at what altitude the accident happened," Mr Bauer said when asked about a local television news report saying the crash happened at an altitude of 1,200 metres.
He said the skies were clear and visibility was unlimited on a warm summer afternoon.
A Reuters photographer at the scene said wreckage was strewn several hundred metres across the field.
Police said criminal investigators were at the scene and trying to determine the cause of the crash.
Dropzone Unknown
With all of the worldwide disasters happening, have you thought about joining in and helping out somehow? Skydiving skills, to reach people in isolated areas, are being used by Remote Area Medical, to bring in help where it is needed yet where it is inaccessible by conventional ground transportation.
Remote Area Medical - RAM Airborne
Remote Area Medical, RAM, has been providing humanitarian aid to people worldwide since 1985, with the airborne division currently on the rise and seeking skydivers. Founded by Stan Brock, from the show Wild Kingdom, RAM and its volunteers are “Pioneers of No-Cost Health Care” with well over 400 missions in the US and abroad.
The first RAM Airborne mission was to Tennessee in 2005, proving that skydivers and cargo can be dropped into an unknown area, on top of a hill in the Appalachian Mountains. The next RAM Airborne mission is to Guyana in South America, to clear trees from existing grass runways; making them accessible once more by airplanes. From March 26 to April 9, RAM’s mission to Guyana will provide air-ambulance access to the people living in the nearby villages. This is a non-medical mission, but medical support is needed, in the event of an injury or medical emergency during the mission.
An additional trail team is being recruited, not requiring skydiving skills, to re-clear a trail in the Amazon forest, connecting two villages to another airstrip which was repaired by a RAM team in 2004.
This will be a physically demanding mission, to clear large trees and thick undergrowth, while living in a tent or hammock. Hiking through the Amazon forest is no walk through the park either, with machetes in hand and packs on your back; these are a few things to keep in mind, and a few things to savor, for those who want to come for the adventure.
Skills Being Sought:
Skydivers must have a B-license or better, with an average of 100 jumps as a minimum; good canopy control and a canopy wing loading of 1.3 or less are expected, because there’s no room for error, and no hospitals to go to if you biff your landing. As you may have guessed, no hook turns allowed. You bring in your own gear for camping, and you pay for your own airfare to and from Georgetown, Guyana – but it is tax-deductible, since it is for a humanitarian effort. It is the most direct way to give, by providing your skills directly where it is needed!
RAM is also seeking people with medical skills, to handle any potential injuries that may happen, one per team at a minimum – more if possible – plus some basic medical supplies. The rest of the team is not required to be medically trained but everyone must be physically prepared – this is not your typical working-holiday trip overseas – it is hard work and it is worth it.
Videographers are also being sought, to help document this first-time-ever event. Proof of skills will be necessary, to ensure one’s safety, and others’ as well; video cameras may also be provided, as details are confirmed. Videographers would be the first to land, then film the others as they land; the case-of-beer policy will be waived, mainly because there are no stores to go get any and no refrigeration either.
If you or someone you know is interested – here are some things to begin doing:
Work on hop and pop exits and accurate landings
Gear up your camping supplies – for a two-week camping trip
Get in shape – it’s a load of work and physically exhausting
Join RAM as a volunteer – send an e-mail to karen @ karenhawes.com for further details, or go to
http://www.karenhawes.com/ram/RAM-Mission-FAQ.htm
RAM Camp
If you want to work on the skills necessary for this type of skydiving mission, there will be a “RAM Camp” training program offered in mid-March at Skydive Arizona, prior to the Guyana mission from March 16 - 19, to hone or develop your skills in:
Spotting, exiting and landing in unfamiliar areas
Cargo-bail preparations and air drops
Basic field-medical skills, stitching open-wounds, making traction splints
Basic camping and navigation skills
Other survival tips and tricks to know, plus pitfalls to avoid
Prospective volunteers, who complete this course and display the necessary skill level required, will be selected over volunteers who do not. For more information about the RAM Camp, go to http://www.karenhawes.com/ram/RAM-Camp.htm
This course will be taught by three RAM volunteers, with years of experience in the areas of skills being taught:
Rene Steinhauer – Medical Aid in Remote Areas
Bryan Burke – Cargo/Spotting/Airdrops and Navigation
Karen Hawes – Travel Tips (for men and women) and Gadgets in the Wild
RAM Camp Instructors
All three trainers will cover their own areas of expertise, and survival skills training, based on actual in-field experience; with personal experiences ranging from domestic and international relief efforts, everyone has something to learn in this course.
Here’s a brief background of each instructor:
Rene Steinhauer RN, CFRN, EMT-P – Rene is a currently working as a flight nurse in Antarctica till February 2006. He has worked on humanitarian projects around the world and has also worked as a combat medic on the front lines in Iraq. He has trained civilian and military personnel in remote and combat medicine for years. He is also one of the founding members of RAM Airborne.
Bryan Burke – Safety and Training Advisor at Skydive Arizona, with two decades in the sport and 3,200 jumps. Although he is known in the sport as the organizer of numerous boogies and competitions, he also has considerable experience with parachute testing, skydiving for the entertainment industry, and other applications that require precise airborne delivery. Most of his off-DZ time is spent kayaking, backpacking, or rafting in remote wilderness areas.
Karen Hawes – A Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin, with 500 jumps on 6 continents in 12 countries and at over 100 dropzones, she has been a RAM volunteer since 2004. She is the current RAM Airborne recruiter, with three missions to: Guyana (airstrip repair), Sumatra (tsunami relief), and Tennessee (first RAM airdrop mission). A fourth RAM mission to New Orleans is scheduled, for the second week in February 2006. She is also working on configuring solar power sources for hand-held electronic devices, to be used on remote-area missions.
For More Information and to Sign-Up
For more information on the mission in March and the RAM Camp, go to:
http://www.karenhawes.com/ram/RAM-Mission-FAQ.htm
http://www.karenhawes.com/ram/RAM-Camp.htm
Come One, Come All!
If someone you know is interested, but not a skydiver, then now is the time to begin training and cap it off with one of the RAM Camps, to be ready for future missions. If you already have the skydiving skills, you can take advantage of this unique opportunity to add “Humanitarian” to your list of skills and world experiences.
Find out more about RAM at www.ramusa.org and join the adventure!
Aerial Photographer Killed in Florida
PENSACOLA, Florida. (AP) - An experienced aerial photographer plummeted 11,000 feet to his death Thursday after his parachutes became entangled and failed to open.
John Foster, 37, was videotaping a skydiving instructor and a student when his main parachute became entangled with his reserve chute, and both failed to open.
He landed in a field in Elberta, Ala., and was taken to a Pensacola hospital, where he died. He had head and leg injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The chutes getting tangled was a freak accident, said Pat Stack, who works for Emerald Coast Skydiving and was the drop zone manager for the jump.
"It's just not something that happens," she said.
Stack said Foster had made 6,000 to 7,000 jumps and often was hired to record other divers' jumps.
"He jumped all the time. He loved the sport," Stack told the Pensacola News Journal.
Two Killed in TV Tower Collapse
HEMINGFORD, Neb. (AP) — A 1,965-foot-high TV tower collapsed, killing two workers who were trying to strengthen the structure, which had been taller than the Empire State Building.
Three other workers were injured Tuesday, rescue officials said. The cause of the collapse was being investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Two of the workers were repairing the roof to a small transmission building at the base of the tower. The three others had been hired to strengthen the tower so it could be equipped for high-definition television transmission, according to the owner, Duhamel Broadcasting Enterprises of Rapid City, S.D.
"I happened to glance up and saw the tower toppling over. It looked like the center section kind of leaned out first and the top fell down", said Don Jespersen, a 46-year-old farmer who was working in his field about a half mile away.
Jerry Dishong, station manager for ABC affiliate KDUH in Scottsbluff, said there was no apparent reason for the collapse, citing clear and calm weather. After the accident, the station could only be viewed by cable subscribers.
Killed were Lawrence A. Sukalec, 59, of Valier, Ill., and Daniel E. Goff, 25, of Sesser, Ill. They were on the tower when it collapsed, according to the Box Butte County sheriff's office.
Three other workers were taken to a hospital in Alliance. Two were treated and released and the third was listed in good condition.
The tower, about 20 miles northwest of Alliance, had been the tallest structure in Nebraska and one of the world's highest. It was more than 500 feet taller than the Sears Tower in Chicago and 700 feet higher than the Empire State Building in New York City.
In 1998, eight skydivers from Utah were arrested for trespassing after jumping from the top of the tower. They left a black flag at its top to show they had made it to what they deemed their "holy grail."
The Mile-Hi Skydiving Center lands a fine
LONGMONT — The Mile-Hi Skydiving Center has landed in legal trouble.
The business was fined $500 and ordered to pay $138 in court costs Monday after the company's attorney entered a guilty plea to a third-degree trespassing charge, a misdemeanor.
The plea avoids a trial scheduled to begin today.
In August, the company's president Jeffrey Sands, 37, landed his helicopter on a farm to retrieve a cut-away parachute that fell on to the property at 7457 St. Vrain Road, according to a sheriff's report.
A drop zone staff member got out of the helicopter and told a woman who rents horses on adjacent property that he was retrieving the drop zone's parachute. William Jones, 70, whose wife owns the farm, called the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to file a trespassing complaint.
Jones said Monday all he really wanted was a letter from the district attorney or sheriff's office telling Sands to stay off the property.
"A lot of the neighbors have had problems with the skydivers," Jones said. "In the past he (Sands) has had no respect about going on to people's property."
Jones said he was unsure if Sands received a letter but that "he was told if he comes on the property again, it will cost him some more money."
Deputy District Attorney Ken Kupfner said he specifically requested that the misdemeanor charge name Sands' business in hopes that Sands and his employees will be more accountable for their future actions.
Sands said he does his best to be sensitive to the community. To avoid problems, he said his company — operated out of Vance Brand Airport since 1995 — stopped using detachable rip cords in 1998. The company airplane flies double the 800-foot requirement and reduces the propeller's rpm when flying low to avoid noise complaints.
He said the company policy is for a land crew to seek permission from property owners before retrieving items that inadvertently fall on private lands.
"I want to be a good neighbor," Sands said.
He called the August incident of landing a helicopter on private property "a fluke situation" because the woman the staff member got into an argument with had complained about noise before and threatened to steal and damage the next parachute she found.
He also said that he thought he landed on Boulder County open space land and did not intentionally land on Jones' private property.
Bush parachutes for 80th birthday
Former President George H.W. Bush celebrated his 80th birthday Sunday by parachuting twice onto the grounds of his presidential library. Both great leaps were made in tandem with more experienced jumpers from the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute team from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
After the jump Bush encouraged others. "Don't just sit around watching TV talking to it. Get out there and realize at 80 years old you still got a life. And that is what this was about. "I like speed and I like the thrill of it, but that second part is, I think it sets an example for older people... because you are 80 years old that doesn't mean you are out of it, out of the game."
Stiff winds led Bush to cancel plans for the second jump to be done solo. Bush's first jump occurred at 7:45 a.m. (8:45 a.m. ET) and his second at 1:20 p.m. (2:20 p.m. ET).
His exit from a twin-engine DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprop plane traveling at 120 mph at an altitude of 13,000 feet was made in the company of six soldiers, three of whom had cameras attached to their helmets. About 60 seconds of free fall were followed by five to eight minutes of gliding onto a landing on a grassy field, near where he plans to be buried. Two Secret Service agents accompanied Bush on the plane, but did not jump.
Several hundred people, including former first lady Barbara Bush, witnessed the event. Also watching the jumps was former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who said he turned down an invitation from Bush to participate as a jumper. "I'll consider it maybe for his 90th birthday," Gorbachev told reporters.
Bush's second jump was preceded by separate jumps by actor Chuck Norris and Fox News Anchor Britt Hume, both of them also done in tandem.
The leaps marked Bush's fourth and fifth parachute jumps. The first wasn't planned. As a Navy pilot during World War II, Bush bailed out of his plane when his torpedo bomber was hit by anti-aircraft fire south of Japan. His two crewmen died. Bush last jumped on June 9, 1999, in celebration of his 75th birthday.
Last week, Bush told CNN's Larry King he wanted to send a message that "just because you're 80, that doesn't mean you can't do fun stuff or interesting things."
With his five official jumps, Bush has enough to earn a skydiver's pin.
Asked whether his father would indeed celebrate a future birthday by jumping again, Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida told reporters, "I hope so. ... I want my dad to live forever."
Bush's jump actually came a day after his birthday, which he celebrated Saturday in Houston with a gala dinner at Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros.
A number of foreign dignitaries attended, including Gorbachev and former British Prime Minister John Major. Other famous faces on hand included comedian and CNBC host Dennis Miller, tennis star Chris Evert and pro golfer Greg Norman.
The guests were entertained by stars of country and Christian music, including singers Clint Black, Vince Gill, Amy Grant and Yolanda Adams.
Proceeds from the event will go to the George Bush Forty-One endowment, which helps fund the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Points of Light Foundation. Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the group "41@80," which helped organize the events, said the 41st president "remains actively involved in all three of these organizations."
In light of former President Ronald Reagan's death, McGrath also said on the group's Web site: "Given the charitable nature of these events, we believe President Reagan would be the first to say 'the show must go on.' "
Kapowsin Air Sports gets 2nd setback
Operators of a skydiving school at Kapowsin Field, a residential airport in rural Pierce County, recently received their second setback in eight months when an administrative law judge recommended against renewal of a liquor permit.
Kapowsin Air Sports owners Geoff and Jessie Farrington had been ordered last August by a Pierce County Superior Court judge to scale back their thriving skydiving business at the airport, 10 miles south of Orting. The Farringtons have gone to the Washington State Court of Appeals to contest that land-use-permit decision.
The more recent rebuff came in the form of a permit ruling released April 25. Administrative Law Judge Ernest Heller recommended the state Liquor Control Board deny a permit renewal requested by Kapowsin Air Sports. The board is expected to issue a final decision in a month or so.
The Class 4 special permit is the type required at a private banquet. It doesn't allow alcohol sales but permits the school to serve alcohol for free.
"It appears that consumption of beer following a day of skydiving is the expectation of many skydivers," Heller said in his ruling. "The beer consumption seems to have developed into an uncontrolled potluck party."
Jessi Farrington disputed that description. She said a few drinks at the end of a dive day is a 50-year tradition among skydivers.
"People who are making decisions are not experiencing any of what's going on here," she said.
Arguments on the subject were heard last December and in March after Pierce County land-use officials objected to the renewal request. County officials said a liquor license is not allowable at the airport, which is zoned for rural residential use.
The skydiving school has been controversial among airport residents for the past few years. Some residents, as well as Pierce County officials, think the 23-year-old school has outgrown what it set out to be.
The Farringtons bought 110 acres in the rural area, built the airport and opened the school. Over the years, pilots and skydivers bought portions of the airport, which now features 27 residences. The skydiving school started in 1978 with 2,000 jumps a year and the level of activity has grown to 20,000 jumps.
Farrington said Heller's ruling won't affect her school, but said, "it's going to affect the social aspect of it."
Skydiver cheats death after chute malfunctions
Years from now, when Tonguc Yaman recounts his adventure to his children, it may go something like this:
Drove the Harley to Sussex Airport. Strapped on the parachute. Jumped out of a Cessna. Went home. Slept.
Forgive him if he fails to mention the part about the chute collapsing in a freak wind, the freefall to the ground, and the helicopter ride to the trauma center. Because for Yaman, the thrill of sky diving and the memories of 99 previous leaps from airplanes far outweigh his brush with disaster Saturday.
"I want to do it again," a slightly beat-up Yaman, 34, said from his home in Tenafly on Sunday. "Whenever my leg stops aching."
It's an attitude that his trainer, Bud Mazeiko of Skydive Sussex, explained like this: "Just because you have a car accident doesn't mean you're never going to drive again."
It's hard to believe that less than a day earlier, Yaman fell the final 30 of 10,000 feet near Sussex County Airport -- and that mere hours after he was admitted as a top-priority patient to Morristown Memorial Hospital, he headed home with little to show but some heavy-duty bruises.
The bruises will fade, for sure, but the tale will last a lifetime.
A veteran jumper for four years -- since his wife, Ute, gave him lessons as a birthday gift -- Yaman, a finance specialist, wanted to mark his 100th jump in style. On Saturday morning, he hopped on his Harley and headed to Sussex with plans to meet up with his wife and two children to celebrate afterward with a barbecue feast at a friend's house.
The 100th leap was to be his second of the day, and it started like any other. In the Cessna, Yaman and three other divers reached 10,000 feet and jumped, each with a plan to join hands, then break apart and activate their chutes.
"I approached them slowly and connected with them," Yaman recalled. "It was beautiful. I was thinking, 'Yeah! This is nice -- my 100th jump!' "
At 5,000 feet, the divers broke off as planned. Yaman dropped another 2,000 feet, getting ready to ride upwind, crosswind, and downwind to a safe landing. He pulled the cord to activate the chute.
Then came what Yaman called "a crazy wind," a freak draft from the side that struck his parachute.
"It just folded and closed. I tried to open it, tried to make it full again."
One side of the parachute ballooned, but the other remained limp. Thirty feet from the landing zone, the chute waved above him like a handkerchief, and it was far too late to deploy the backup.
As he zoomed toward earth, did he think about death?
"I wasn't thinking about emotions," Yaman said. "There is no time for those things. It is a second or a split-second, and you better get a parachute over your head."
He smacked into the landing zone, a grassy target made soft by recent rains.
"I wasn't dead, but I knew I was hurt," he recalled. "The ambulance guys came. They tried to close my mouth but I told them, 'I want to have fresh air.' "
When he next saw his wife, it was in the trauma center at Morristown, after a Medevac flight. An MRI and X-rays showed no internal injuries, and Yaman insisted on going home.
For the pain, he took exactly one aspirin.
Yaman credited his survival with hours of training with Mazeiko and the staff at Skydive Sussex, who taught him to head for a grass landing zone, and who never fly over buildings, cars, or asphalt.
All of which will be on his mind for the 101st leap.
Skydiving Rings in New Year on a High Note as Safety and Popularity Soars
Fredericksburg, Va., Jan. 11 -- Things are looking up for the skydiving industry.
According to the U.S. Parachute Association (USPA), America's premier skydiving association, 2007 made history as the year skydiving took a dramatic turn upward as one of the most popular adrenaline sports in the nation.
USPA reports that 2007 was one of the safest on record with 18 skydiver fatalities -- out of over 2.5 million jumps. That number surpasses a 1962 record for skydiving's fewest accidents.
Considering that in the early 1960s, USPA was only about 10% of its current size with 3,353 members and the aggregate number of jumps was considerably less than today's 2 million+ jumps, this record stands out even more as a testament to years of strict safety standards, training policies and programs.
"This has been a group effort," said Ed Scott, Executive Director of USPA. "USPA policies have been applied by every skydiver in the nation, as well as coaches, instructors, safety/training advisors, drop zone owners, riggers, pilots, manufacturers and gear distributors. We should all take pride in the strides we have made in skydiving safety the past half century."
And the good news doesn't end there. Significantly more people are taking up the sport.
USPA membership soared in 2007, with a significant number of new skydivers joining its ranks. USPA ended 2007 with more members (31,264) than the previous year for the first time since 2002. The total number of new members in 2007 was 4,900, reversing a five-year downward trend; it's also the highest number of new members since 2003.
The skydiving industry also saw an unprecedented upturn in the number of skydiving licenses issued by USPA; more than at any point in the last four years.
USPA's 2007 Skydiving Review with additional stats/demographics will be released in early spring.
USPA is dedicated to the promotion of safe skydiving nationwide, establishing strict safety standards, training policies and programs at 200+ affiliated skydiving schools/centers. The Federal Aviation Administration recognizes and supports USPA's successful leadership role in the self- regulation of skydiving.
USPA hosts the National Skydiving Championships, the sport''s largest and most exciting annual competition, October 18-25, 2008 (Skydive Arizona).
Information: 1-800-371-USPA, http://www.USPA.org.
Source: U.S. Parachute Association
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