0
skybytch

sad news

By skybytch, in The Bonfire

Recommended Posts

skybytch    273

skybytch
Another of our skydiving family left us today. A well known southern California skydiver and movie stuntman died this morning while doing a non-skydiving related movie stunt in Prague, Czech Republic. There is an article translated from Czech posted on rec.skydiving under the subject "bad news" if you want more details on the incident. The jumper's name has not been released to the public yet.
pull & flare,
lisa

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Milo    0

Milo
Current details from the English version of the Czech News:
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/view-id.php4?id=20020404E04479
U.S. stuntman for Triple X film dies today
- 4.4.
PRAGUE, April 4 (CTK) - A U.S. stuntman, 45, died today shortly after midday during making an American action film Triple X in Prague, Iva Knolova of the Prague police said.
"He was pulled on a paragliding and hit a pillar of the Palacky bridge. He died on the spot due to heavy injuries," Knolova said.
The Triple X' production immediately imposed an embargo on any information for the media.
Not even anybody of the stuntmen agency Filmka, cooperating with the film makers, told CTK anything.
"I cannot comment without the permission of the Stillking Films," Filmka chief Ladislav Lahoda told CTK today, confirming only that one of the U.S. stuntmen died.
Stillking Films refused to comment either.
The police now investigate whether the accident was caused by a technical shortcoming or breaching security rules.
Triple X, being produced by U.S. director Rob Cohen, is mainly be made in the Czech Republic.
The main casts include Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson, the latter fairly well known from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown movies.
According to previous information, the script ought to talk a story of a professional sportsman in extreme sports who become a government intelligence agent. He, Diesel, has a task to destroy Russian mafia gang.
The Stillking Films company is one of the seven most significant film producers taking part in making foreign films in the Czech Republic.

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

marcin    0

marcin
Just saw an amateur video of the accident, showed on our TV. Two guys descending on round parachutes above a river and close to a bridge (pulled by motorboats?). The victim separated from the parachute (cut away) at approx. 60 feet but seemed to be sliding down on some rope, then he hit the side of bridge and fell into the water. At least that what I saw from that quite remote and poor quality footage. Really sad, looked (and was commented) as trivial misjudgement.
marcin

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

billvon    3,069

billvon
The first time I met Harry was during a demo into a golf course in Escondido somewhere. It was a night jump with pyros and lights, and we were racing the fog. On it were Harry, Dwight, Ron, Denny and myself. Other than Ron and I everyone was a SEAL.
I ended up sitting next to Red, our pilot. We circled for about half an hour, then finally turned in. As Red turned onto jump run, he leaned over to me and said "Two minutes." I made a two-minute sign to Ron, and Ron told Harry.
Suddenly there was much shouting and commotion. "Two minutes! Two minutes!" everyone was yelling. Harry told Dwight, who told Denny. Denny came to the front of the King Air, shook me, and yelled "Two minutes!" He also told Red. Red looked at me and asked "What the hell are they going on about?"
It was my first experience with the SEAL way of doing things, which always involved a lot of pressure, yelling and hitting of people. We exited, fired off the pyros, and landed safely, all of us sliding many meters along the wet grass. Then of course it was time to drink, and Harry told us about the slow start of his movie career, all his plans for Hollywood.
The next time I saw him was years later at a Skyshow demo. We were going to jump into Jack Murphy stadium, and I had built a computer controlled strobe-synchronization system so each jumper could jump with a strobe that fired in time to the music.
Well, the day before we all did practice jumps into the stadium. I had a Triathalon 190. Compared to my usual 135, I figured this was plenty big.
"It's, uh, F111, right?" Harry asked me
"No, ZP."
"You're gonna kill yourself, you know." I ignored him and we went up to do the practice jump. On downwind I took it as low as I dared before doing a braked turn (gotta avoid the foul line wires!) and turned into the wind. I flared at about the pitcher's mound . . . and just kept going. I finally got the thing stopped about twenty feet from the outfield wall.
"Told ya," Harry said.
A while after that we did the infamous Peter Pan demo. Harry had organized a 40-person demo jump into the London Bridge (now in Lake Havasu, AZ) for the release of some Peter Pan video. At first it was going to be full Peter Pan suits, which would have looked funny (but for $300 I was willing to look pretty damn funny.) Due to availability problems it became just green tights.
I was with Taz when we got the tights. Taz is a huge guy, and a rigger for the SEALs. I grabbed mine, took my rig off, and put them on. Taz just looked at his.
"You gonna put your tights on, Taz?" I asked him.
"I'll put my tights on when I'm damn well good and ready!" he barked at me. He waited until the absolute last minute before he put them on. It's just not right to look silly when you're a SEAL.
We took off and headed over the landing area. Bob McMeans spotted. Ron and I were in the low plane, and we did a 2-way from 5000 feet. The high plane would be exiting at 12,000, timed so people landed in two waves. As I exited I looked down at Lake Havasu and hoped that Bob was spotting for a pretty strong onshore wind.
Well, he wasn't. We opened up about half a mile from shore, and we all scattered, looking for any available dry land to land on. I ended up flying up a gully by the shore, dodging cactus and cholla to land on a big rock. There were people landing on the highway, in town, in the Taco Bell parking lot, and in people's back yards. Lake Havasu was being invaded by Navy SEALS in green tights.
I gathered my stuff and started bushwhacking my way back to the road. I got a ride back to the landing area, where all 40 people moped around. Only three people had made the landing area at all. The sentiment was that we should go up and do it again for free.
Harry came walking down the road, and we all clustered around to hear what he was going to do. "They loved it!" he said. "People landing all over, the sky full of canopies, the freefall footage . . ."
"But Harry, only three people landed in, and that sucks! We could get all 40 landing here," someone said.
"Well, _they_ don't know that, and they liked what they got . ." he said.
I didn't see him much after that, although I'd always look for his name in the credits after any movie that involved a jump. About half the time he was there, under "aerial stunt coordinator" or something like that. I'll miss him and his take-no-prisoners approach, whether he applied it to a demo we were on or a new Hollywood stunt he was working on.
-bill von

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

skidyver    0

skidyver
I've known Harry for many years. And although your stories, Bill, are nice, they will be highly matched by his countless friends I'm sure.
Harry lived life to the fullest. He is truly missed already.....
And now our thoughts are with his beautiful wife and two baby girls.
Blue skies, Harry. We love you.....

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

flyhi    24

flyhi
Harry was an absent, part-owner of a confirmed tandem factory of a DZ. Or, at least, it was when Harry was not in town. Because of the remote location, he could only visit once a year or so. And when he did, everyone knew it was time for RW. Jumping with Harry was always exciting, challenging, and gratifying.
The first time I jumped with him, he asked what I wanted to do, I said dive, he said okay. The pressure was on, and I made it into my slot. He trusted me, he believed in me, and then he challenged me. Not the latitude a lot of LO's would afford you. Harry was not a lot of LO's.
At a DZ not known for "big stuff" (anything over a 4-way was considered "big stuff"), Harry got people do to things they hadn't done in a long time. He worked up a 12-way that eventually evolved into three 4-way stars which rotated through each other. We had trouble dirt diving it, but Harry said we could do it. I would have felt lucky if we had just gotten to the first point, but Harry was confident. We did the dive twice, and the first time we had two of the stars dance through the middle. Total geekdom once we were on deck. But Harry wasn't satisfied. He kept saying, "We can do this". And everyone believed him.
On the second jump, we did. And we didn't do it because we were a bunch of RW jumpers who practiced together all the time. Our group had hardcore freeflyers, tandem masters who projected the burnt-out on RW persona, and some RW types. I truly believe we did it because Harry said we were going to do it. That was the last time I jumped with Harry. It was the last really great formation I did at that DZ, too.
Harry had a video resume of all the movies he worked on (Air Force One, Charlies Angels,...) that he showed us. If he had released it, I would have bought a copy. If you ever get a chance to see it, it's worth it. He was quite a guy. We will miss him.
"Marge, I'm coming to bed & I've been watching women's volleyball on ESPN."

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
0
Go To Topic Listing