As of: February 23, 2024, 9:10 p.m
By: Johannes Welte
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A BASE jumper fell to his death in northern Italy (archive photo).
© Copyright: xOliverxFurrerx via www.imago-images.de
A BASE jumper fell to his death while jumping from a rock face above Lake Como.
Apparently the 62-year-old's umbrella had not opened.
Lecco – Lake Como is an Italian idyll straight out of a picture book.
It has always attracted the rich and famous: big screen stars like Gary Cooper, Liz Taylor and Frank Sinatra once enjoyed vacationing here, today superstars like Robert De Niro, Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen spend their best days here - and George Clooney even has one own villa.
On Wednesday (February 21), the glamorous lake became the scene of a deadly drama.
A 62-year-old base jumper wanted to jump from the approximately 400 meter high Forcella wall with a wingsuit.
The rock face is a popular destination for BASE jumpers, who plunge into the depths like birds of prey in their bat suits and glide along the rock faces in order to pull out their parachute in time.
On
YouTube
you can see several videos of men jumping into the depths on the wall above the lake.
The wingsuit pilot is also a colorful figure: Alessandro F. from Gallarate in northwest Lombardy, a retired jumbo jet pilot.
He previously flew a cargo Boeing 747 for Cargolux Italia, reports the portal
ilgiorno.it
.
The base jumper fell into the depths without stopping in front of a witness
A local man witnessed the jump where something went wrong.
According to ilgiornale.it,
the only witness later explained
to the rescuers that the wingsuit did not open as expected after takeoff and that it went into a spin after 200 and 300 meters.
The victim fell in a wooded area above the lake shore.
The witness immediately called emergency services.
An ambulance immediately drove to the foot of the wall and the medical team had to climb to the victim on foot, with the help of the mountain rescue service and accompanied by the state police.
The rescuers soon found the BASE jumper lying lifeless on the ground; all they could determine was his death.
The rock face on the Italian lake has already been the scene of several dramas
The Forcella wall has been the scene of wingsuit accidents in the past: last week, a 32-year-old base jumper from Rome missed the landing site and slipped into the lake.
Last May, a 51-year-old from Lombardy miraculously got his sail caught on a ledge and crashed into it.
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The professional base jumper Maurizio Di Palma (27), one of the best base jumper and wingsuit pilots ever with more than 5,000 jumps, reports to
ilgiorno.it
about the Forcella wall: “Of course I know it, everyone around us knows it , it is a very famous place since the American Dean Potter jumped from there.
It’s not one of the worst, but it’s still a non-trivial jump that requires a good level of experience.”
Dangerous sport has already claimed over 500 lives
The US outdoor star Dean Potter fell to his death with a comrade while base jumping in Yosemite National Park in the USA in 2015.
How dangerous base jumping is can be seen from a list on the Internet, which currently shows 503 deaths since 1981.
Alessandro F. was not yet listed on Friday.
Only recently, dubious accidents on Lake Como caused a stir.
The film served as a backdrop in some films such as Star Wars, which further increased the tourist rush to the idyll.