Champion skydiver plummets to death during wingsuit jump

A champion wingsuit flyer who featured in a BBC documentary called The Boy Who Can Fly has died after he was critically injured in a jump over the weekend. 

Liam Byrne, 24, was taking part in a high-risk jump at nearly 8,000 feet above sea level in the Swiss Alps on Saturday when tragedy struck, according to The Telegraph, citing local police. 

Byrne, of Scotland, was wearing a wingsuit, a specialized webbed-sleeved jumpsuit with membranes between the arms, body and legs which allows a diver to glide flight in the air.

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He was one of three wingsuit pilots who launched a jump from Gitschen, a mountain overlooking Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

However, Byrne “deviated from his intended course shortly after take-off for reasons still unknown and crashed into a rocky outcrop,” police said. “He suffered fatal injuries.”

Byrne, a British champion in the adrenaline-fueled sport, was an experienced flyer with more than 4,000 jumps to his name, according to the outlet. His Instagram account also lists him as a skydiving instructor, wingsuit coach and BASE (Building, Antenna, Span and Earth) jumper.

In the BBC-produced documentary, filmmakers follow Byrne’s journey to champion flyer.

Byrne told the documentary: “I think I was about 13 when I said to my dad that I wanted to learn to fly like a bird.”

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He said that an office job scared him far more than the fear of dying from a base or wingsuit jump. He insisted that good preparation was at the heart of all his jumps and kept him safe and acknowledged that the high-risk sport worried his family.

Byrne climbed Mount Kilimanjaro at age 12, became a licensed paraglider at 14, completed his first skydive at 16 and was flying in a wingsuit by 18, according to the BBC.

Byrne’s family released a statement praising him and saying that the sport was “more than just a thrill for Liam – it was freedom. It was where he felt most alive.”

“We would like to remember Liam not just for the way he left this world, but for how he lived in it,” the statement reads in part.

“Liam was fearless, not necessarily because he wasn’t afraid but because he refused to let fear hold him back. He chased life in a way that most of us only dream of and he soared.”

The statement continued: “He inspired all of us and made life better with his bold spirit and kind heart. We will miss Liam’s wild energy and contagious laugh. Though he has now flown beyond our reach, he will always be with us.”

There have been a number of wingsuit-related deaths in the U.S., including a January 2024 incident in which Gregory Coates, 36, died in Colorado after both his primary and reserve parachutes failed to deploy.

In September, Jonathan Bizilia, 27, of Alabama died in a jump in Utah.