the most powerful feeling in the world
is flight if you could achieve there
that it would be like achieving an
impossible dream I've always set out to
set records and set big goals for myself
I didn't want to just be a wingsuit
pilot went to be the first guy in the
world to climb Mount Everest and jump
off of it and that is what led me to the
nightmare that changed everything for me
my name is Joe be a Gwyn I'm a
professional mountain climber BASE
jumper and wingsuit pilot
it's hard to get him to go together Joe
Bo Quinn
sounds cool if you get it right that's
what I say sometimes I get Javy Agua
know I grew up in the flatlands of
Louisiana there were no mountains around
me and yet I had a complete and total
fascination with mountains I have a
really vivid memory of watching a show
about the first expedition from the
United States that went to climb Mount
Everest they were struggling and risking
their life for something that very few
people could actually understand why
they were doing that but I understood
why man if I could do that if I had the
opportunity to do that then I would take
it when I was 18 years old I went to
climb Kilimanjaro in Africa after that I
climbed Mount Everest three times to the
summit I climbed solo each of the three
times that I was up there because I
liked the experience at that
all of the pressure was on me when it's
just you there you get all the good
stuff just for you
I really thought that I had achieved
everything you could get like I thought
man I'm as high as you could get as a
human being and then all of a sudden I
saw this big black Raven just out of
nowhere just blast right past me and
went down the south west face you know
just and I thought wow okay how do I get
that view I never could have dreamed
when I was a little kid thinking about
it in the backseat of my parents car
that there would literally be a suit
that would allow me to fly but as soon
as I saw that there was I was so fast to
get my hands on it welcome to wingsuit
world Lynx is just a nylon suit the
first real wingsuit that I ever had was
this one the way that it works is pretty
simple you have all these little tiny
vents in the suit so that when you jump
off of a mountain the air hits those
vents and the suit becomes rigid like a
little airplane and that allows you to
fly why did I do jumping off of
mountains and flying away that had never
been done before
the idea at the time was you jump off
and you fly as far away from the cliff
as you possibly can and then you open
the parachute so you're safe you're come
out here in this big green field you
know nothing to it you're okay and then
after a few years we started to say what
if we jumped off and we took a left and
we just started flying next to the wall
man what a rush it would be to just see
this wall kind of go a passion the
feeling of speed would be so much more
intense there's only a couple guys that
ever flew all the way around all four
phases of the Matterhorn I was the first
guy to do it
the only other guys who'd do it were the
three guys that I took with me
yeah just need to access this box real
quick see it should be yeah
that's me gotta name Dukes from
Australia's very famous BASE jumper
we're hovering above the summit of
another famous and iconic mountain the
Eiger in Switzerland
suit which were inside of it it's kind
of like Iron Man the suit blows up in
like two seconds all sudden you're going
hundred miles an hour you can't just
tell it what to do you have to feel what
it's doing you have to let your body
really sink into it how close are you
come to the walls oh you know five or
ten feet and this one not really close
at all
now the key is get it right every time
as you make a mistake it can be your
last mistake hmm the nights on man I
thought you don't I got a dude you got
it yeah it's weird too cuz this footage
is sold the guy who shot the footage
shoes flying with me is dead now we've
died yeah there he is there's the man we
lost Jeff last year he was my best
friend we lost him I lost quite most the
enthusiasm for for uh for flying yeah
it's quite special
I thought I had lost a lot of friends in
high-altitude climbing until I got into
wingsuiting I lost seven friends in the
last two months from flying suits seven
people seven awesome people but
I'm glad to see him it reminds me of how
how good it could be to like this was
this was like the best day to make a
flight like that with your friends the
closest of your friends to have the
flight go perfect and safe it reminds me
of why I was doing it in the first place
it was worth losing him you know be
worth it from lose myself my goal since
I started off climbing mountains and
flying suits just to put it all together
and make something very special happy I
had this idea that I wanted to jump off
tallest mountain Mount Everest high
altitude climber and wingsuit Explorer
JB eggwin is the world record holder for
the fastest Everest climb at nine and a
half hours and there is televised jump
in May he plans to climb to the summit
in five days and get back down in less
than ten minutes I felt like I could
relate such a massive experience to the
planet I started working with Discovery
Channel started working with NBC what
they started off was a two-hour special
like a documentary and what they ended
up with was a seven and a half hour
primetime live to 225 countries in the
world
you gotta be pullin man we're gonna go
for it that's for sure at the point
where we got there after a
year-and-a-half of wrangling with it
seemed like the easy part
like the climbing the mountain jump an
office like route that's guaranteed we
can get to the top
I'll never forget I was kind of laying
in my tent and I heard this big boom i
unzipped the fly of the tent and I kind
of pull the tent back and I I look out
to see okay what is that look like a big
worm or a dragon just going down the
mountain devouring my guys one by one by
one sixteen guys died half of those
people were working directly for me
it was a really great pilot hit a b3
that could operate very well at high
altitude and he took a long line and he
put it there watching those guys did
little lifeless bodies hanging full
rope like that you know it was
just like it really discounted
everything that all of the people there
felt like they were trying to do so in
the end we all left I sent those guys to
do a job and they all died and I go to
sleep every night I think about that and
I think about those guys families and I
think about the fact that I'm still here
and I see my little son and my wife
every day with any luck for a few more
years and those guys don't have that
hey man you never seen a big camera
before almost five months yeah it's
going fast but you won't be jumping off
any mountains you'll be making some nice
pieces of art or some engineering
something like that that's more valuable
yes having a baby has been exactly the
way I thought it would be I put it off
as long as I could not because I didn't
want it but because I knew that if I
looked at my child in the eyes it would
be really hard for me to do what I do on
a daily basis in that way it has changed
everything for me
yes I know it's tough man go ahead go
ahead
I want far more to see him grow up and
experience a few things that I do want
to jump off the mountain now but I've
always hated to leave any project
unfulfilled I cannot let these guys die
for nothing
we're not gonna run away that's
my goal is to go back this spring and
make the ultimate mega flight on the
tallest mountain the world that has ever
been made and it's using it the biggest
most high-performance wingsuit that they
make which means that I'll have the
flight of a lifetime
what I have to do leading up to the next
few months of going and thinking about
making this mega jump is to go out to
the desert and jump out of an airplane
it's kind of a matter of practicing with
that stuff to make sure that everything
works exactly the same way that I
thought it was going to work last year
the last time I jumped I jumped with two
friends of mine one guy named Jeb and
another guy named Johnny and Johnny is
dead now he just died a couple weeks ago
flying wingsuits jumping off a mountain
in Switzerland my confidence level is
down instead of standing on the edge of
the cliff and saying I can go and I can
jump down and I can fly down and land at
that point I'm thinking man you know I
hope nothing happens here jumping ain't
the same as it used to be
that's for sure five minutes if Cheerios
won please get into the loading area
five minutes
then once you get up there and you get
in the air it's like we've kind of
forget about all that negative stuff it
is nice to fly
over
you