Extreme Skier Shane McConkey Dies in Ski-BASE Accident

Tahoe-based extreme skier, Shane McConkey, died yesterday after
launching off of a cliff during a ski-BASE attempt. My condolences to
Shane's friends and family. Via ESPN's Freeskiing:

A member of the Red Bull Air Force and pioneer of the ski-BASE-ing
phenomenon, McConkey experienced problems in the air after launching
off a cliff with the expectation of deploying his parachute canopy and
then gliding down to the ground—as he had done successfully some
700-plus times before.

"He did a double backflip off the jump and
he has these releasable bindings so they come off in the air and then
he flies off in his wing suit," filmmaker Scott Gaffney, a longtime
close friend of McConkey's, told ESPN Action Sports in an interview
this afternoon via phone.

"But one ski did not come off. And when
that happens the drag on the skis causes you to flip over, so the skis
go over your head. So he was struggling with the one ski. Then he also
got into a bad spin. So he may have never even pulled his pilot chute.
And that's coming from JT Holmes, who Shane was with in Italy and who
reviewed the footage of the accident. So the combination of the ski,
the spin and the pilot chute, apparently. Because you can't throw the
pilot chute like that; if you throw it while you're upside down and it
wraps around the ski, you're done."

Here's Shane in action: