28 January 2024 , 09:29
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A British base jumper has plunged to his death after his parachute failed to open.
Nathy Odinson, 33, climbed to the top of the 29-floor apartment building in the coastal resort of Pattaya, Thailand, on Saturday night. Footage shared on social media shows the tattooed daredevil counting down "three, two, one, see ya" before leaping into the night sky - only to go into a deadly tailspin with the small pilot chute flailing through the air.
Nathy, of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was pronounced him dead at the scene. Security guard Kanet Chansong, 33, said: "I heard the sound of the tree and I though it was a fallen branch hitting the ground. A woman screamed so I walked over and realised it was person. They were dead. I saw that they had jumped from the building."
In the video, Nathy asks the person recording him from the other side of a security wall if his helmet camera has the red light flashing to indicate it is recording. When he realises it was not recording, Nathy removes his helmet and presses the button before briefly checking his parachute.
The security guard said that Nathy had jumped from the building several times before, which posed a risk for pedestrians walking below. He added: "They were making video content for social media. They had done this before and they knew it was not allowed."
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Police are pictured at the scene in Pattaya, Thailand, on Saturday night (ViralPress)Police and paramedics arrived at the scene shortly after 7:30pm local time. However, Nathy could not be saved. Police Lieutenant Kamolporn Nadee, Deputy Inspector of Investigations at the Bang Lamung district police station, said there were no initial signs that Nathy had been attacked. The policeman said: "The parachute that the deceased used to jump malfunctioned and was not centred as expected. He was in a terrible state when we arrived."
The friend who recorded the video of him jumping was questioned and the video was examined as evidence.
"Forensics officers are investigating the case further. They are examining the parachute," the police officer added. Nathy had performed sky dives and base jumps around the world. He ran a "sky photography" company and took customers on private sky dives. Police have informed the British Embassy in Bangkok, which is contacting Nathy's relatives in the United Kingdom