The parachutist who survived the accident is a famous extreme athlete. He underwent spinal surgery during the night. The 37-year-old man’s condition is stable but still life-threatening.
Charges have been brought against the owner of the balloon from which the fatal parachute jump near Botevgrad was carried out, in which a man died and another is in a serious condition in hospital.
The prosecutor’s office announced that it will request permanent arrest for Veselin Hristov. He has been convicted five times for various crimes.
The working version of the investigators is that the cause of the accident was the low height from which the jump of the two paratroopers took place.
Balloon flights near Botevgrad were last inspected on October 13 by the Civil Aviation Administration.
The balloon was found not to be unlicensed. However, there were flights on the 14th, 15th, 16th and in the days until October 22, according to Veselin Hristov’s Facebook profile.
Teodor Toshev is a member of the Bulgarian National Parachute Club and knows the two paratroopers.
“They were prepared with the appropriate license that is required,” he says.
However, the balloon did not. Before jumping, every parachutist goes through training.
“Every single step from the moment it is said that the particular person is going to make a parachute jump to the moment that person has gone home to the other parachutists is pre-arranged. We are like drivers – we have categories A, B, C, D,” explains Toshev.
Each category indicates the parachutist’s training. To perform base jumping, or jumping from buildings, balloons, bridges and rocks, more than 300 jumps are needed, writes bTV.
“You jump from a very low height there. To me at least, it’s incredibly dangerous. At least the official BASE jumping schools, as there are in the world, but not in our country, require a minimum license C”, says Teodor Toshev.
According to him, the acquisition of this category does not guarantee that the parachutist is prepared for this type of extreme jumps.
The parachute is designed to open a spare in case of a problem or at low altitude. But experts point out that in base jumping, the athletes themselves neutralize the defenses of the parachutes opening at a lower height.
According to the prosecutor’s office, one of the reasons is precisely the low height from which they jumped.
“The evidence suggests that they jumped together. The parachute did not open on one of them and he died, and on the other it opened, but too late,” said Natalia Nikolova, District Prosecutor of Sofia.
The owner of the balloon spent the night in custody. He was detained for 72 hours, the prosecutor’s office wants to be kept in custody.
“Due to the lack of licenses, he was charged with causing the death of one person and bodily injury to another,” explained Nikolova.
According to the lawyer of the owner of the balloon, he was not involved with the organization of the jumps.
“His activity is only the organization of flights. He has no skydiving activities. The one who organizes the skydiving must take responsibility,” said lawyer Emil Milev.
Veselin Hristov was convicted of five counts – for drug possession, theft and causing accidents.