Well-known Spanish climber Carlos Suarez, 52, died yesterday in a wingsuit accident. He was performing a stunt for a film about his own life of solo climbing and extreme BASE jumping.
The film La Fiera (“The Wild Beast”), directed by Salvador Calvo, was also supposed to document the adventurous lives and premature deaths of a group of close friends of Suarez: Spanish BASE jumping pioneers Dario Barrio, Alvaro Bulto, and Manolo Chana. Improbably, they became a famous chef, a TV anchor, and a successful entrepreneur before all dying in wingsuit accidents. In a further irony, Barrio died jumping at an event that paid tribute to Bulto, who had recently perished.
File image of Carlos Suarez. Photo: Pou Brothers/Facebook
Close call, quit — and return
Suarez himself miraculously survived a BASE jumping accident in Galayos in central Spain that nearly cost him his life. He was seriously injured. That, and the trauma of seeing his friends die one after another, finally made him quit BASE jumping and wingsuit flying. He kept rock and ice climbing, paragliding, and participating in expeditions, but also focused on writing, speaking, and photography.
Some weeks ago, Suarez admitted he was going to wingsuit again, and for a good reason: “I am going to pay tribute to several of the friends gone some years ago,” he wrote. “We are carefully preparing to make sure everything will be safe.”
The tribute he was referring to was the film La Fiera. Something clearly went wrong with the safety procedures.
Freak accident
The accident took place during the pre-production phase while Suarez and other wingsuit pilots were filming some scenes. Details are still sketchy, but they reportedly made a group jump from a hot-air balloon. Three to five people jumped, depending on the source.
For some reason, Suarez’s parachute and his reserve didn’t open properly, and he crashed to the ground. Surprisingly, no one noticed his fatal fall. The alarm only sounded as the film crew drove around to pick up the pilots and discovered that one was missing. They found Suarez’s body after a short search.
An investigation into the accident is ongoing. The production was scheduled to start in May, and Disney was to distribute it in 2026, El Pais reported.
Community shocked
During an interview last year, Suarez described a near miss he had while testing a new model of wingsuit. While in the air, he couldn’t find the ring to pull in order to open the chute. He described the moment as total stress but saved the situation by relaxing and carefully groping behind himself to find the ring, which had become lodged in a fold in the suit. Check a clip of the interview in Spanish below.
Suarez’s death has shocked the Spanish climbing community. Alex Txikon was among the first to share the sad news on Instagram.
The Pou brothers also weighed in. “Carlos [Suarez] was a reference for us during the 1990s,” they wrote. “We were about the same age, but he was extremely precocious on his solo climbs, on sport-climbing routes, trad, big walls, and alpine routes.”
Both Txikon and the Pous noted that Suarez had spoken to them last weekend. Suarez had apparently just ended his relationship with a long-time sponsor.
Life on the edge
Suarez embraced extreme challenges from a very young age. At 17, he soloed the Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses and then did the first solo of one of Spain’s most iconic trad wall climbs, the Rabada-Navarro to Pico Urriello. He was the Spanish sport climbing champion for three years.
Eventually, he became interested in paragliding and then BASE jumping. He especially enjoyed solo climbing + BASE jumping, as he did from Uriellu in the Asturias and from the sandstone walls of Riglos in the Pyrenees. Below, a video of him and Leo Houlding climbing and BASE jumping.
His yearly expeditions combined all disciplines of climbing and paragliding. In his books, such as Morir por la Cima (“To Die for the Summit”) and the documentary Obsession Patagonia, he often reflected on risk.
Suarez planned to climb Saula Peak in the Manaslu region of the Himalaya this year with two companions.
Carlos Suarez leaves a wife and a two-year-old daughter.
