The sport is primarily practiced in Europe, particularly Switzerland, Norway, France, and Italy, where tall cliffs are easily accessible and there are few regulations. Jumpers can glide forward at speeds upwards of 140 miles per hour, steering through the air with mind-boggling accuracy like a high-powered flying squirrel. Wingsuit BASE jumpers, known as pilots, don full-body, aerodynamic outfits designed with baffled chambers that fill with air and create lift. The sport takes BASE jumping-where one jumps from a high point, freefalls, and deploys a parachute-and allows him or her to approximate flight. The thing that makes wingsuit BASE jumping so appealing is also what makes it dangerous. So, what is happening? Are wingsuiters growing into their wings? Is the sport getting safer? Or have people simply decided to step back from the edge, leaving behind their dreams of human flight-and the high risk of early death? Becoming the world's deadliest sport And this year, the 20th anniversary of the first ever wingsuit BASE jump, is on track to be the safest season in a generation. 2018 saw an uptick to 23, still below 2016’s level. The number of wingsuit BASE jumping deaths have since gone down. Our 2016 story, Why Are So Many BASE Jumpers Dying?, detailed what remains the sport’s single deadliest year, when at least 31 wingsuit BASE jumpers died, including one pilot who was killed while broadcasting his jump live on Facebook. At this point in 2016, more than twice as many had lost their lives. Just five wingsuit BASE jumpers have died so far in 2019.

This summer, however, the world’s deadliest sport has claimed far fewer lives than past seasons. Summertime in the European Alps is the so-called “killing season” for wingsuit BASE jumpers, who leap to their accidental deaths in adrenaline-fueled pursuits of human flight.

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