NEWS
BIGGER
PICTURE
What : Red Bull Wings Through Tower Bridge Where : London When : 12 May Image : Alex Grymanis
At 5.25 am on the 12 May , Austrian skydivers Marco Fuerst and Marco Waltenspiel jumped out of a helicopter at 3,000 feet , travelled 1.2km in just 45 seconds , and then flew through a 65 x 32m ‘ window ’ between the iconic towers of London ’ s Tower Bridge at 153mph . Once through , they pulled their parachutes and landed on barges moored on the River Thames .
Not surprisingly , the duo were the first people to wingsuit through the London landmark . Working alongside Red Bull to pull everything together on the ground , and the bridge , was Rupert Bassadone and his Ops People colleague Bethan Bloomfield .
To successfully navigate the near-endless red tape and address the countless issues involved in orchestrating such a complex spectacle at a central London landmark , Red Bull began planning the stunt some 18 months ahead of its activation . Bassadone and Bloomfield were brought in a year ago to work on the project with Red Bull head of events Clemmie Reed .
The seasoned event professionals ’ responsibilities included managing the closure of the bridge and all the contractors involved in it , along with the advancing , all the site plans , scheduling and accreditation .
“ The site plans weren ' t your usual site plans , there were elevations as well ,” says Bassadone . “ Red Bull organised a series of rehearsals , and each time they did a rehearsal the skydivers had GPS trackers on them which tracked their trajectories . We used that data and overlaid that on to the elevations of the bridge so we could see how they were going to come through the bridge , what angle they would come through , and how they would then flare upwards to 80 metres ; the height required to open their parachutes . The most terrifying part was when they jumped out of the helicopter , and you could see them , close together , nosediving to pick up that incredible speed .”
Bassadone says his nerves were also tested by a last-minute issue with closing Tower Bridge : “ The closure of the bridge happened in different phases , we had to close it first to pedestrians and then to vehicles , which meant liaising with the contractors and obviously the bridge operator .
“ With events you always get a fixer who ' s a local and knows their way around . On this project it was Jason Ruxton , the controller on duty for Tower Bridge . He was just phenomenal ; really grounded and unflappable . We had a situation where the barrier that we were using for the pedestrians on the pavements didn ' t turn up because the van had broken down . We had 50 minutes until we were due to close the bridge , and things were very condensed at that point . Jason came through with a last-minute solution .
“ It was more than a year in the making , a pretty complicated thing to orchestrate , with a spectacular result .”
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