A British base jumper lost his life in a tragic accident when his parachute failed to open during a jump from a 29-storey building.
The incident took place in Pattaya, Thailand, on Saturday night. The 33-year-old man has been identified as Nathy Odinson, a skydiver and base jumper. The police were called to the scene by locals who witnessed a man crashing to the ground through a tree.
“The parachute that the deceased used to jump malfunctioned and was not centred as expected,” The Mirror quoted police lieutenant Kamolporn as saying. “Forensics officers are investigating the case further. They are examining the parachute”.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office has said that they are providing support to Odinson’s family.
The video of the incident has gone viral on social media and shows Odinson jumping from the building after giving a briefing. He can be seen wearing protective gear and inspecting his equipment before jumping.
🚨NEW: British Base Jumper’s Fatal Mistake: Parachute Entangled in Harness, No Chance of Deployment
Nathy Odinson, a British base jumper, tragically plunged to his death from a tower block in Thailand due to a “simple” parachute mistake. His brother, Ed Harrison, revealed that… pic.twitter.com/uyHgXGeUVe
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 29, 2024
According to local media reports, Odinson had extensive experience in base jumping. He had 10, 000 followers on Facebook and would often share photos and videos from the stunts with his followers.
In a similar incident, a 33-year-old British base jumper, Dylan Morris Roberts, died after his parachute failed to open during a jump in the Italian Alps last year.
The former skydiving instructor was in Monte Brento, in the northern region of Trentino, when he jumped from a height of 800 metres. The man hit the side of the mountain just 200 metres into his jump from a spot locally popular as “Happy Birthday”. It is one of the most popular spots for base jumping in Italy.
Local police officers had claimed that he may have miscalculated his trajectory which led to his tragic death. His body was recovered by mountain rescue workers in an inaccessible gully between Mount Cimone and another mountain, Jof di Goliz.
Robert had previously lost a close friend in a skydiving accident and reportedly suffered a serious neck injury himself.
Roberts had completed thousands of skydiving and base jumps before the accident, according to online base-jumping forum BLINC. He was a trained skydiving instructor who had worked with the British Parachute School.
Meanwhile, an Australian man named Matthew Glen Munting lost his life in a similar incident last year. The 35-year-old man died after hitting a gully after jumping off Mount Cimone. He was one of the most experienced base jumpers in the world, having finished 400 jumps with a wingsuit and 3,000 with a parachute.
