Another Big-Name BASE Jumper Killed in Fall

An American thrill-seeker fell to his death yesterday after attempting a jump at a gorge in eastern Turkey, CBS News reports. Ian Flanders, a California BASE jumper, was in the country for an extreme-sports event, and his jumps were being filmed by a local TV station. Flanders completed his first jump successfully--landing in the Western Euphrates river. "It was a gorgeous flight, a beautiful view of the town," he told the news crew. His last jump ended in tragedy, however. The lines of his parachute reportedly became tangled around his legs, and he fell into the face of the cliff.

It's the sport's third "superstar" death this year, notes USA Today. (The other two came in a wingsuit flight at Yosemite in May.) In fact, Flanders was working on a documentary at the time of his death about the dangers related to BASE jumping, the editor of Outside magazine, Grayson Schaffer tells CBS. "The BASE jumping and, especially the wingsuit community, is facing a real epidemic right now," he adds. "It seems like not a month goes by without a well-known base jumper or wing-suit flyer dying these days." (More BASE jumping stories.)