Jeb Corliss

Last updated
Jeb Corliss
Born (1976-03-25) March 25, 1976 (age 47)
New Mexico, United States
Occupation Athlete
SpouseAly DeMayo
Website http://jebcorliss.net/

Jeb Corliss (born March 25, 1976 [1] ) is an American professional skydiver and BASE jumper. He has jumped from sites including Paris's Eiffel Tower, Seattle's Space Needle, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. [2] [3] [4] He lives in Venice, California. [1]

Contents

Professional career

1999

In 1999, Corliss had a near-fatal BASE jump into the Howick Falls, in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. His parachute opening was asymmetric and he could not avoid flying into the downpouring water. [5] [6]

2003

In October 2003, Corliss was teamed to jump with his best friend, Australian BASE jumper Dwain Weston, at the inaugural Go Fast Games. Corliss was to fly under the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, while Weston was meant to pass over it. Instead, Weston impacted the bridge at an estimated speed of 120 mph (190 km/h) which caused his death. [7] [8] [9] Corliss had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with Weston's body. [10]

2006

In April 2006, Corliss attempted to BASE jump off the observation deck of the Empire State Building, while wearing a camera, but was restrained by building security and arrested by the NYPD. As a result, Corliss received three years' probation and 100 hours' community service, [2] which was at one point overturned by Justice Michael R. Ambrecht of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, on the basis that Corliss "was experienced and careful enough to jump off a building without endangering his own life or anyone else's". [11] This sentence was affirmed in January 2009. [12] Corliss was later permanently banned from the Empire State Building. [13]

2009

In 2009, UK's Channel 4 television documentary Daredevils: The Human Bird focused on explaining Corliss's daredevil attitude in facing his fears and culminated in a dramatic leap in a wingsuit from a helicopter 180 meters (590 feet) over the Matterhorn with a flight that brought him within a meter or so (several feet) of the summit which he maintained down the entire 900 meters (3,000 feet) descent off the ridge.

2011

On September 25, 2011, Corliss jumped out of a helicopter at 1,800 meters (5,900 feet) and glided through a 30 meters (98 feet) wide archway in Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China, landing with a parachute on a nearby bridge. [14]

2012

On January 16, 2012, in an accident while proximity flying off Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa, Corliss broke both ankles, three toes, and a fibula, tore his left Anterior cruciate ligament, and sustained a gash in his skin that required skin grafts to close. He struck his legs approximately halfway between the hip and knee on a rock ledge he was attempting to skim over while aiming at a target balloon. The impact caused him to tumble forward one revolution before he regained some control, cleared some additional ledges and then deployed his parachute. Due to the lack of stability, his canopy quickly spun him into the ground. He was airlifted out by the Red Cross Air Mercy Service. He recovered and returned to base jumping. A video of the accident has been released. [15] [16]

2013

On September 28, 2013, Corliss made a jump called the "flying dagger". He jumped out of a helicopter wearing a wingsuit and then flew through a narrow "crack" in Mount Jianglang in China. The fissure is approximately 18 meters (59 feet) across at the top, 45 meters (148 feet) across at the bottom, and over 270 meters (890 feet) tall. After safely completing the jump, Corliss was quoted saying that it was "...the single gnarliest thing I've ever done..." and "I have never experienced anything so hardcore. Period. I have not been that scared in my life. It was so powerful and overwhelming. I started crying..." [17]

2016

Corliss was the technical adviser for the wingsuit flying stunts featured in the 2015 release Point Break , an action thriller film remake, in which he briefly appears. [18] [19]

In 2015 Corliss said "I know 100 percent that this sport is going to kill me. That makes me take it very seriously." [20]

Media career and other ventures

Corliss was also the original host of the Discovery Channel series Stunt Junkies , appearing in 12 episodes, but was fired by Discovery after the surreptitious 2006 attempt to BASE jump the Empire State Building, which was performed against the network's advice. [21]

Corliss is a co-founder of 3 Triple 7, a clothing label.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BASE jumping</span> Sport of jumping from fixed objects using a parachute

BASE jumping is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend safely to the ground. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Participants exit from a fixed object such as a cliff, and after an optional freefall delay, deploy a parachute to slow their descent and land. A popular form of BASE jumping is wingsuit BASE jumping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wingsuit flying</span> Variant of skydiving

Wingsuit flying is the sport of skydiving using a webbing-sleeved jumpsuit called a wingsuit to add webbed area to the diver's body and generate increased lift, which allows extended air time by gliding flight rather than just free falling. The modern wingsuit, first developed in the late 1990s, uses a pair of fabric membranes stretched flat between the arms and flanks/thighs to imitate an airfoil, and often also between the legs to function as a tail and allow some aerial steering.

Clements Joseph Sohn was an American airshow dare-devil in the 1930s from Fowler, Michigan, USA. He perfected a way of gliding through the air with a home-made wingsuit. He had himself dropped from an airplane at a height of approximately 6000 meters, and would glide down until he was only 300 to 250 meters from the ground, at which point he would open his parachute for the final descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felix Baumgartner</span> Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper (born 1969)

Felix Baumgartner is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is widely known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon from the stratosphere on 14 October 2012 and landing in New Mexico, United States, as part of the Red Bull Stratos project. Doing so, he set world records for skydiving an estimated 39 km (24 mi), reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), or Mach 1.25. He became the first person to break the sound barrier relative to the surface without vehicular power on his descent. He broke skydiving records for exit altitude, vertical freefall distance without a drogue parachute, and vertical speed without a drogue. Though he still holds the two latter records, the first was broken two years later, when on 24 October 2014, Alan Eustace jumped from 135,890 feet with a drogue.

Patrick de Gayardon was a French skydiver, skysurfer and a BASE jumper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Léo Valentin</span> French aviation pioneer (1919–1956)

Léon Alfred Nicolas Valentin was a French adventurer, who attempted to achieve human flight using bird-like wings. Léo Valentin is widely considered to be the most famous "birdman" of all time. He was billed as "Valentin, the Most Daring Man in the World".

Stunt Junkies is a Discovery Channel television series that presents professional athletes performing dangerous stunts. The show demonstrates all the steps the athlete must do to successfully complete the stunt. Stunt Junkies was created and executive produced by Jordan G. Stone and produced by CBS Eye Too Productions. The series lasted two seasons and 43 episodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parachuting</span> Action sport of exiting an aircraft and returning to Earth using a parachute

Parachuting and skydiving is a method of transiting from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or parachutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberta Mancino</span>

Roberta Mancino is an Italian skydiver, BASE jumper, wingsuit flyer and international model. She has participated in more than 12,500 skydives and won several awards and world records. She has gone on four skydives while completely naked, and on five occasions her parachute did not open in mid-jump. In 2010, Mancino was named the World's Sexiest Female Athlete by the magazine Men's Fitness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tianmen Mountain</span> Mountain in China

Tianmen Mountain is a mountain located within Tianmen Mountain National Park, Zhangjiajie, in the northwestern part of Hunan Province, China.

Dwain Weston was an Australian skydiver, BASE jumper and wingsuiter. On 5 October 2003, at the end of the inaugural Go Fast Games, Weston was killed while attempting to fly over the Royal Gorge Bridge near Cañon City, Colorado, United States.

Gary Connery is a British skydiver, BASE jumper, and professional stuntman. Connery has performed stunt-work in numerous films. He has also acted as the stunt-double for Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rowan Atkinson, and John Hurt. He is acknowledged as the first skydiver to land after a wingsuit jump without using a parachute. He made his first parachute jump at age 23, as part of his army training.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valery Rozov</span> Russian BASE jumper

Valery Vladimirovich Rozov was a Russian BASE jumper, who became known for jumping from the world's highest summits. He currently holds the record for highest BASE jump in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Carta</span>

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H. Truesdell Smith—known variously as "H. T. Smith", "Henry Truesdell Smith", "Harold Truesdell Smith", or "Daredevil Smitty" but best known as "Smitty the Jumper"—was an American exhibition parachutist and skydiver of the 1920s and 1930s. He made periodic returns to skydiving starting in the late 1950s, jumping in every subsequent decade until his death, becoming widely known as "the oldest living skydiver", a title he claimed until his death in 1995 at the age of 96.

Luke Aikins is an American professional skydiver, BASE jumper, pilot, and aerial photographer. He is the first person to intentionally dive from mid-tropospheric altitude and land safely without a parachute or a wingsuit and the second skydiver to intentionally jump and safely land without using a parachute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Provenzano</span> American professional skydiver (born 1976)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ski-BASE jumping</span> Base jumping with skis

Ski-BASE jumping is the recreational sport of skiing at a high speed off of a cliff or mountain and free-falling through the air, using a parachute to descend to the ground, therefore combining the two sports of skiing and BASE jumping. Participants often perform tricks or manoeuvres during the freefall and remove their skis mid-air in order to safely deploy the parachute and land.

Vincent Reffet was a French BASE jumper, skydiver, wingsuit flyer, and jetman.

References

  1. 1 2 "ABOUT". Jeb Corliss. 2013. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  2. 1 2 Walder, Noeleen G. (March 5, 2008). "Indictment Reinstated Over Corliss' Attempt to Parachute off Empire State Building". New York Law Journal . Retrieved December 29, 2008.(registration required)
  3. ↑ "PHOTOS". Jeb Corliss. 2013. Archived from the original on December 19, 2017. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  4. ↑ Bryant, Eric (April 13, 2013). "Jeb Corliss on the Impossible" . Retrieved September 5, 2013.
  5. ↑ Corliss, Jeb (December 8, 2006). "A Year in the Life". YouTube . Retrieved December 8, 2006.
  6. ↑ Corliss, Jeb (April 8, 2015). "Base Jumping waterfall accident video". YouTube . Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  7. ↑ Times Wire Reports (October 6, 2003). "Stunt Attempt Proves Fatal for Skydiver". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved October 6, 2012.
  8. ↑ Jones, Lola (November 16, 2008). "The Legend's last jump on the last day - whatever happens happens". XtremeSport. Retrieved October 6, 2012.
  9. ↑ Martin, Bruce; Wagstaff, Mark, eds. (2012). "Controversial Issue 11: Should extreme sports, such as BASE jumping and other high-risk sports, be included in adventure programming?". Controversial Issues in Adventure Programming. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. p. 177. ISBN   978-1-4504-1091-5.
  10. ↑ Abrams, Michael (2006). Birdmen, Batmen, and Skyflyers: Wingsuits and the Pioneers Who Flew in Them, Fell in Them, and Perfected Them . New York: Harmony Books. pp.  271–272. ISBN   978-1-4000-5491-6. This book misspells Weston's first name as "Dwaine".
  11. ↑ Hartocollis, Amanda (January 18, 2007). "Foiled Daredevil Fares Better in Court". The New York Times. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
  12. ↑ Maull, Samuel (January 22, 2009). "Empire State stuntman gets 3 years of probation". Seattle Times Newspaper. Seattletimes.com. Archived from the original on February 23, 2014. Retrieved February 3, 2014.
  13. ↑ Italiano, Laura; Gregorian, Dareh (June 16, 2010). "Empire of the 'shun' for daredevil". New York Post.
  14. ↑ "GoPro: Jeb Corliss Flies Through Tianmen Cave". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-14.
  15. ↑ "Jumper hurt in leap from Table Mountain". January 16, 2012. Retrieved August 16, 2013.
  16. ↑ Grady, Mary (January 17, 2012). "Wingsuit Flyer Injured In Crash". AVweb. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  17. ↑ Williams, Ian (September 30, 2013). "US daredevil Jeb Corliss: 'I started crying' after surviving 'flying dagger' stunt". NBC News . Retrieved November 17, 2015.
  18. ↑ Krogh, Ryan (December 24, 2015). "Point Break, Reborn: How The Greatest Movie Stunt of All Time Was Made". Men's Journal. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  19. ↑ Jhaveri, Hemal (December 27, 2015). "How the creators of 'Point Break' filmed a death-defying wingsuit stunt". For The Win. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
  20. ↑ Duane, Daniel (December 24, 2015). "The Master Flyer". Men's Journal. p. 95.
  21. ↑ Celizic, Mike (January 17, 2008). "Daredevil sues NYC landmark for thwarting jump". TODAY.com. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
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