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A group of BASE jumpers have left passers-by in the Perth CBD shocked by leaping off the top of one of the city’s tallest buildings in broad daylight before parachuting down to a park below.
Key points:
- The group plunged from the 40-storey Exchange Tower this morning
- Shocked witnesses said they could not believe what they were seeing
- BASE jumpers have previously targeted Bluff Knoll in WA’s south
The WA Police condemned the stunt in which at least two jumpers were filmed standing on the top of the 40-storey Exchange Tower, before leaping off and landing in a patch of grass.
“This type of behaviour is reckless and irresponsible and the WA Police force does not condone this type of behaviour,” a police spokesman said.
Alex Bennett, who works on the ninth floor of a nearby building, said he was confused when he saw the jumpers.
“I was just doing my work and out of the corner of my eye I saw something strange,” he said.
“I walked over to the window and saw one dude landing right here with a parachute and I was like, ‘What the hell?’
“I kept looking and another two guys landed, and they just grabbed their chutes and kind of legged it around the corner.”
Mr Bennet said the jumpers made a quick getaway.
“There was a bunch of people around here just kind of looking around like ‘what the hell is going on?’, and yeah, they just like full-pace legged it across the road and then they were gone,” he said.
Exchange Tower is one of the tallest buildings in the Perth CBD.
It houses several government and corporate tenants, including the WA offices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Commonwealth Parliamentary offices frequently used by WA politicians including Attorney-General Christian Porter and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.
Photo:
At 40 storeys, Exchange Tower is one of the tallest buildings in the Perth CBD. (ABC News: James Carmody)
A spokesman for Exchange Tower would not comment on how the jumpers managed to gain access to the building’s roof.
BASE jumping not new to WA
In 2014, two thrillseekers successfully completed two separate BASE jumps from the peak of Bluff Knoll in Western Australia’s Stirling Ranges.
The men jumped from one of the state’s tallest peaks before donning wingsuits and flying at high speed to the ground.
Neither of the men were injured and the activity was not deemed illegal at the time, but the department that manages the area cautioned about the risk of “inappropriate” activity.
A BASE jumper was injured in 2015 when he jumped off the top of the Queens Riverside apartment building in Perth.
The jumper was one of three men who leaped from the top of the 25-storey building on Adelaide Terrace about 2:00am.
He was taken to Royal Perth Hospital and treated for leg injuries.
Extreme sport’s fatal risks
In 2017 a West Australian man died while attempting a BASE jump in Italy and crashing into a mountain in the Trentino region.
Ben Dummett, 25, from Mandurah, south of Perth, had been in Europe for several months BASE jumping with friends.
The experienced skydiver had completed more than 300 jumps before his fatal plunge.
The Australian BASE Association has previously campaigned for more legal BASE jumps to be held in Australia to enable jumpers to gain experience and improve safety.
Topics:
extreme-sports,
police,
perth-6000,
wa
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