Brian Lee Schubert, 66, of Alta Loma, California, died on the morning of October 22nd when his parachute opened too late and he hit the river during the park’s annual Bridge Day event. Schubert was described as an experienced jumper with numerous prior jumps. In 1966, he and a friend became the first people to jump from El Capitan, a nearly 3,000-foot-tall rock formation in Yosemite National Park. This was the first BASE jumping death at Bridge Day since 1987 and the third since the event started in 1980. Jumping from the bridge was temporarily suspended while Schubert’s body was recovered by rescue boats and taken by ambulance to a local funeral home. Schubert, a retired Pomona, California, police lieutenant and graduate of the FBI Academy, was one of 388 jumpers from 13 countries who paid the $75 application fee to jump from the nation’s second-highest span. His equipment was collected and will be inspected as part of a joint investigation by the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department and National Park Service. More than 800 jumps were made from the bridge on Saturday, and several other jumpers were injured. Rangers estimate that there were 56 water landings and 148 shore assists; all other jumpers came down in the landing zone and required no assistance. Once a year, the park allows people to parachute off the world’s second-longest single-span bridge to the river below.
