HURTLING over peaks at about 500 km/h, a Swiss man flew over the Alps in a wing-suit on Saturday, in what his team said was the first time the mountain range had been crossed in a free fall.
Parachutist Remo Laeng, 36, jumped from a plane 7,500 metres up, near the Swiss ski resort of Verbier and sped south over the Alps. Laeng flew for four minutes before crossing the 4,314-metrehigh Grand Combin peak in southwest Switzerland to mark the feat.
Wing-suit flying, first developed in the 1990s, uses a special jumpsuit with webbing between the limbs to add surface area to the body and give it lift, which enables the wearer to glide toward the ground before deploying a parachute.
Laeng triggered his parachute after a seven-minute ride, covering 26 kilometres horizontally, before landing safely in Aosta, Italy, Swiss news agency SDA reported.
One of his greatest challenges during the flight was judging whether he had enough altitude to get over the Grand Combin. "I don't run any risks," he said. "If I see that it is not enough, I would break off the flight . . . I never had any doubts."             –Calgary Herald