Fatalities from wingsuit flying have occurred almost from the inception of the sport. Listed below are examples where wingsuit pilots were publicly named in the press, including when wingsuit practice was not the first cause of death.
Date Name AgeLocationDetails01 4 February 1912 Franz Reichelt 33France The inventor of a pre-modern wingsuit, jumped from the Eiffel Tower to his death in a failed test flight. He was told multiple times to not do it, but he was confident. People managing the Eiffel Tower thought he was going to use a test dummy.02 Gerard Masselin 27 The French stunt parachutist jumped from a biplane showing his wingsuit to the camera and was killed after his parachute failed to open.03 13 April 1998 Patrick de Gayardon 38United States A pioneer of modern wingsuit design, Gayardon's parachute rigging malfunctioned after jumping from a plane in Hawaii.04 11 October 2002 Lukas KnutssonSwitzerland Experienced Swedish BASE jumper, died when his parachute failed to deploy during a jump from Fürenalp, near Engelberg in the Swiss Alps. Brother of Swedish fashion designer Filippa Knutsson.05 5 October 2003 Dwain Weston 30United States Australian skydiver who held the 2002 BASE jumping world title, died after hitting a railing on the Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City, Colorado. This was not a BASE accident as he had jumped from an airplane; it was technically an illegal jump since he used BASE equipment containing only one parachute (i.e., no reserve parachute). The pilots were eventually reprimanded for allowing the jump.06 22 October 2004 Roland "Slim" Simpson 35China Australian BASE jumper. On 6 October 2004, Simpson leapt from the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest skyscraper in China at the time, in a wingsuit. After a good jump and flight, his parachute opened with multiple line twists making it difficult to steer and he crashed onto an adjacent building. He went into a coma, and died several days later in Canberra Hospital.07 9 May 2007 Jimmy Hall 41Canada American adventurer and TV personality died on an expedition to Baffin Island in northern Canada. After several days of successful jumps, Hall attempted a wingsuit flight through a canyon. He failed to clear a ledge, and struck the cliff.08 26 March 2009 Shane McConkey 39Italy McConkey was a professional skier and BASE jumper. While performing a complicated ski-BASE jump in Italy, he experienced problems when he attempted to release his skis, and as a result failed to deploy his parachute in time.09 28 August 2009 Eli Thompson 36Switzerland Died while performing a wingsuit proximity-flying jump from a helicopter in the Swiss Alps. He accidentally hit the side of the mountain.10 12 April 2010 Geoffrey Robson 30South Africa Died during a wingsuit BASE jump and proximity flight from a cliff on Duiwelskloof near Stellenbosch, South Africa. Originally from South Africa, Robson was a PhD candidate at ETH Zurich working on the mathematical modelling of the aerodynamic characteristics of wingsuits. He was described by a former professor as "very careful [, taking] the sport seriously".11 16 September 2011 Valentina Rotar 37Switzerland From Slovenia, died while jumping from High Nose in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. After opening her parachute, she hit the cliff wall and was killed on impact. At the time, she was one of two women BASE jumpers in Slovenia1221 October 2011Antoine Montant30FranceMulti-extreme sport athlete died after experiencing a wingsuit accident near Collet d’Anterne in Haute Savoie, French Alps. When his body was found, his parachute was undeployed. At the time of the accident, Montant was jumping alone.13 23 June 2012 Hervé Le Gallou 51 Veteran BASE jumper, died wingsuiting on Grande Tête de l'Obiou in the French Alps when he was killed on impact, due to possible equipment failure. Along with Dave McDonnell, Le Gallou was one of the first people to jump from the Burj Khalifa and had jumped from the Eiffel Tower over 40 times.14 7 July 2012 Alan McCandlish 31Switzerland New Zealander, was jumping with friends when he struck the cliff face and fell near Berner Oberland, southwest of Zürich. McCandlish hit a ledge, plunged over a cliff and fell to another ledge to his death. Australian BASE jumper Chris "Douggs" McDougall, who witnessed the accident noted how McCandlish was wearing a new suit for the jump and may have misjudged his ability to turn. McDougall wrote that the accident was a result of "100% human error". McCandlish was part of the team that pioneered the Kaipo Wall in Fiordland National Park in 2008. They were first to claim the biggest vertical cliff in New Zealand.157 August 2012Shane Murphy30FranceUS wingsuiter and veteran of 1,000+ jumps died after jumping from Tête de Croix de Fer near Chamonix, France, where wingsuit flying was banned.16 9 September 2012 Wioletta Roslan 37Switzerland Swedish-Polish adventurer, died on a wingsuit jump from the Flower Box at Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland when her parachute failed to open. Wioletta began skydiving at age 19 and had jumped from this location many times before. Four months pregnant at the time of her death, Wioletta was making one last jump before her pregnancy advanced further.17 8 December 2012 Peter Farley 33Australia Australian, was killed in a wingsuit jump after colliding with another skydiver during a formation dive above Wilton, southwest Sydney, Australia. Farley was said to be struggling with his wingsuit during the jump. An investigation found half of the 17 flyers participating in the jump lacked the prescribed Australian Parachute Federation ''star crest'' qualification to perform jumps with more than 10 people. The organization suspended several instructors who were involved in the mass skydive after the accident. Farley's death is recognized as the first wingsuit death in Australia.18 12 December 2012 Eiliv Ruud 37United States Norwegian, struck a vertical cliff and spiraled out of control during a wingsuit jump near Grand Canyon in the United States.193 January 2013Kurt Ruppert29Experienced skydiver and wingsuit flyer was last seen when he jumped from a helicopter over Mount Si in Washington state. He never reached the landing zone. The original search area covered 9 square miles. Search teams called off the search days later, saying it was unlikely he had survived. His body was never found.20 14 August 2013 Mark Sutton 42Switzerland British stuntman who had parachuted into the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony as a James Bond character, was killed when he hit a ridge while wingsuit BASE-jumping near Martigny, Switzerland. He was participating in an event sponsored by Epic TV, and a wingsuit expert stated that he appeared to have miscalculated the gradient of the ground he was flying over.21 18 August 2013 Mario Richard 47Italy Canadian-American wingsuit flyer, died during a wingsuit BASE jump from Sass Pordoi in Italy’s Dolomites. In 2011, he was the first to jump from Tofana di Rozes alongside his wife, Steph Davis. In 2012, Richard estimated he had completed 7,000 sky dives and 2,000 BASE jumps without injury.22 23 August 2013 Álvaro Bultó 51Switzerland Spanish TV presenter, extreme sports enthusiast and wingsuit flier, died after a wingsuit BASE-jump in Switzerland. He was the son of Francisco Bultó, the founder of the Bultaco and Montesa motorbike companies.23 9 October 2013 Victor Kovats 40China Hungarian wingsuit flyer, plunged to his death in a trial run before the Red Bull World Wingsuit League world championships in Tianmen Mountain. His parachute failed to open due to equipment failure or adverse wind conditions. Kovats was a three-time Hungarian national wingsuit champion and had successfully completed over 700 jumps before his death.24 14 January 2014 David Strather 41United States Canadian doctor, was killed during a wingsuit proximity flight near the Grand Canyon. He died on impact 15–20 seconds after jumping, possibly from equipment failure.25 8 February 2014 Amber Bellows 28 American BASE jumper and parachutist, died wearing a wingsuit when her parachute failed to open after jumping from Mount Kinesava at Utah's Zion National Park. BASE jumping is not permitted at Zion National Park. Amber's death was the first BASE jumping fatality reported at Zion in the park's history. 26 13 March 2014 Sean "Stanley" Leary 38 Prolific climber, adventurer, and BASE jumper, was killed in a BASE jumping accident near Zion National Park, Utah. Leary climbed Yosemite's El Capitan more than 50 times and had set numerous climbing records on that mountain, including setting speed records for climbing the Salathé Wall, with Alex Honnold; and The Nose. Leary's death was the second BASE jumping fatality at Zion. His body was found about 300 feet from the top of West Temple peak and was retrieved by his friend and climbing partner Dean Potter, who would later be killed in a wingsuit accident in 2015.2729 March 2014 Dan Vicary 33Switzerland The three experienced wingsuit flyers jumped from a helicopter over the Lütschental area near Interlaken, Switzerland. They had planned to land in the valley, but took a wrong turn, flew over the wrong ridge, and crashed into an alpine pasture. Vicary and Woerth were found dead; Drake died four days later in hospital.28Ludovic Woerth3429Brian Drake3330 31 March 2014 Ricki Wüst 35 Canadian wingsuit flyer, died in a wingsuit jump from High Nose on the Mürrenfluh in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland.3125 May 2014 Jeff Nebelkopf 43United StatesAmerican wingsuit designer and professional stuntman, died in Sebastian, Florida after experiencing trouble with his equipment during a wingsuit jump. He had carried out development work on wingsuits and instructed others in the sport.32 6 June 2014 Darío Barrio 42Spain Spanish TV chef, owner of the Madrid restaurant Dassa Bassa and an experienced wingsuit flier, died in an accident while participating in the International Air Festival at Segura de la Sierra in Jaén, a province in southern Spain. Darío was supposed to fly over an old castle but opened his parachute too late, crashing into the cliff where the castle is located. During the event, the wingsuit flyers participated in a tribute to Alvaro Bultó, a wingsuit flyer who died in an accident a year earlier.3316 August 2014Abraham Cubo38ItalyExperienced Spanish BASE jumper and wingsuit flyer died after hitting rocks when jumping from the Becco dell'Aquila at Monte Brentoni, in northern Italy.34 2 September 2014 Alex Duncan 26Switzerland Australian from Manly, Sydney, died after crashing into a mountain during a jump from the Croix de Fer in the Swiss Alps. Duncan had completed over 500 wingsuit jumps prior to his accident.35 14 January 2015 Josh Sheppard 31United States Experienced wingsuit flier and skydiver with more than 3,000 jumps, died when his parachute failed to open after he illegally jumped from a Michigan TV tower.36 16 May 2015 Dean Potter 43 Died during an illegal wingsuit flight from Taft Point, in Yosemite National Park.37Graham Hunt29387 June 2015Gabriel Hubert40CanadaWingsuit BASE jumper died after crashing into trees when his parachute did not deploy while jumping from Ha Ling Peak in Canmore, Alberta.39 3 July 2015 Jhonathan Florez 32Switzerland Colombian, known as "The Birdman", a 2013 wingsuiting world champion, died after falling from the exit point at Engelberg, Switzerland.40 10 July 2015 Damian Hrdlicka 52 American, long-time skydiver and Yahoo-sponsored sky surfer, was found dead with his parachute undeployed approximately two-thirds of the way through his flight path at Gitschen, Switzerland.41 1 October 2015 Johnny Strange 23 American adventurer, crashed into the ground and died after jumping from a 2,000 metre summit in the Swiss canton of Uri.42 12 January 2016 Mathew Kenney 29United States Crashed and died while wingsuiting in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in northern Arizona. In a 2015 interview, Kenney shared that he had completed over 5,000 successful jumps.43 7 June