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Skydiving Accident Leaves Security Guru Cedric 'Sid' Blancher Dead At 37

Posted by timothy on from the regards-to-his-friends-and-family dept.

An anonymous reader points out The Register's report that Wi-Fi security expert Cédric 'Sid' Blancher has died as the result of a skydiving accident. "Among other things, the 37-year-old Blancher was a sought-after speaker on WiFi security, and in 2005 published a Python-based WiFi traffic injection tool called Wifitap. In 2006, while working for the EADS Corporate Research centre, he also put together a paper on how to exploit Skype to act as a botnet." Some of Blancher's skydiving videos are posted to Vimeo; clearly, it's something he was passionate about.

28 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Security 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Secure your common sense. Don't skydive.

    1. Re: Security 101 by WWJohnBrowningDo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Skydiving is 7 micromorts per jump. That's equivalent to travlling 1600 miles by car.

      Source

    2. Re: Security 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      They typically don't die while skydiving. It's right after they stop skydiving.

    3. Re: Security 101 by Jeremi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's really a distortion of how dangerous skydiving is. The vast majority of skydiving deaths aren't really accidents but rather someone doing something stupid under a perfectly good canopy.

      I don't see the distortion -- deaths caused by stupidity are just a real as any other kind of death. In that case, the risk is that you'll make a bad decision, rather than a risk of equipment failure, but it's still a risk.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    4. Re: Security 101 by Lehk228 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      indeed, most car accidents are caused by one or more stupid actions

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    5. Re: Security 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      " from things that are either illegal (base jumping)"

      WHOA! - B.A.S.E. jumping is NOT illegal - not everywhere, at least. As a matter of fact, in Twin Falls, Idaho, they let you jump off one of their bridges (Perrine bridge, over the Snake river) pretty much any time you want to. It's a big draw to their city.

  2. That's a shame by msobkow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's a shame. To go so young.

    But I never have understood the sanity behind jumping out of a perfectly good plane. :(

    A friend of mine was into sky diving years ago. Everyone warned him he was taking crazy risks and he'd die some time.

    But in the end, he died flat on his back under a car that slipped from the jacks. Life can be so ironic...

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    1. Re:That's a shame by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Interesting
      I've been skydiving exactly once...

      It was on my bucket list, wanted to try it to see what all the fuss was about.

      I've had many amazing experiences in life. Getting married, the birth of my children, flying solo for the first time (in a helicopter with the doors off, quite an experience!).

      About the only thing that compares... the birth of my first child... that is first on the list, skydiving would be second... above everything else...

      There is simply nothing I can say to anyone who hasn't done it... stepping out of an airplane at 13,500 feet above the ground, parachute on your back, nothing but you, the sky, and God.

      Well, ok, the pair of instructors with you, one per side. I did the accelerated free fall option, so I had my own chute, they fall with you to 5,000 ft, then you open and spend about 4 minutes by yourself under canopy (they fall another 1,000 ft to make sure your chute opens cleanly, then they open their own.)

      I understand it, it is amazing, and I never need to do it again. :)

    2. Re:That's a shame by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I expect it depends a lot on your physiology/psychology. I don't really get any kick at all out of extreme physical experiences, or anything material - and I've had lots of opportunity.

      Solving a complex mathematical problem is an immense thrill for me, however. Or figuring out a clever algorithm.

      Why yes, I am a nerd and a geek.

      World's good with all different sorts, though :).

    3. Re:That's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A friend of mine was into sky diving years ago. Everyone warned him he was taking crazy risks and he'd die some time.

      But in the end, he died flat on his back under a car that slipped from the jacks. Life can be so ironic...

      Steve Irving (aka the crocodile hunter) always said "if I ever die during recording something then people will just laugh and say "the crocs finally got him"". In the end he died during recording due to a freak accident involving a stingray. Supposedly they just bumped into each other by accident and the tail went strait though his chest. Life is neither fair or predictable.

    4. Re:That's a shame by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I've had lots of opportunity.

      The question is, did you act on the opportunity? Did you really climb, jump, shoot the rapids, or whatever the opportunity was for? Many people have opportunities, not all take them. Besides ...

      Nothing says a nerd and a geek
      can't also be an adrenaline freak.

      There are pleasures to be had from both intellectual achievement and testing one's physical courage.

      “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.” -- Winston Churchill

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re: That's a shame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      People don't understand that most fatalities from skydiving involve stunts of some sort: hook turns, base jumping, wingsuits. The translation from the French article isn't all that great, but it looks like he was attempting a hook turn and didn't judge the distance well.

      People who just jump out of a plane, open their chute, and drift to the ground rarely perish.

    6. Re:That's a shame by tftp · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is a troll? I don't know the circumstances of his death

      As far as I recall, this is exactly what killed him.

    7. Re:That's a shame by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 3, Funny

      A helicopter is just a collection of 10,000 parts traveling loosely in formation! :)

    8. Re: That's a shame by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 5, Informative
      My skydiving instructor's name was Eddie, he was a very experienced guy (he sure looked it), he said that he had over 8,000 jumps in his logbook going back over several decades.

      In all that time, he has had to use his reserve chute 4 times, however all 4 uses were in the first 4,000 jumps, he hadn't had to use it in almost 20 years.

      His comment was that due to modern chute designs and modern safety practices, if you're just "jumping out of the plane, opening the chute, and landing", the odds of dying are very low. If you do stunts, formations, or fly a sport chute, your risk goes way up.

      He showed us a video of a reserve being used, we also carried an AAD (automatic activation device) and frankly, they have saved a lot of lives in skydiving.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_activation_device

      In short, depending on the model of course, but for a student, if you're falling more than 29 feet per second when you pass through 750 feet above the ground, it fires a wedge cutter that cuts the closing loop to the reserve chute, which is spring loaded so it will deploy even if you're upside down, tumbling, or whatever...

      It takes no more than 250 feet beyond that to fully open a student chute and 250 feet beyond that to fully arrest your sink rate to just a few feet per second, so even if you're completely passed out, you'll live.

      Over 1,000 people have had their lives saved via an AAD, and most jump zones require them for all jumpers.

  3. If at first you don't succeed... by Shoten · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...skydiving is not for you.

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  4. Re:look out below ! by bitt3n · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suppose a lot of people deal with tragedy through humor, but I sure wouldn't want to be a surviving family member and read some of the comments posted so far.

    Seriously, it amazes me how people can fail to understand the gravity of this kind of situation.

    --
    how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
  5. Re:Accident? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.skydivekansas.com/upjumpers/hookturns.shtml

  6. Re:look out below ! by wisnoskij · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Someone dying by definition cannot be a tragedy to the rest of the word. Tragedy implies not just life as usual.

    Though some philosophers maintain that life is a tragedy, so I guess they would disagree.
    Personally, I love Seneca's sentiment: “What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”

    Besides that is a pretty epic way to die.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  7. Re:RIP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    CORD!

  8. Hook turn maneuver by ciurana · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the report, it sounds like Cédric performed a maneuver called "hook turn" -- it's a high speed turn in your final approach, 100' or less from the ground, considered deadly and stupid by USPA, the French Federation of Parachutism, and pretty much anyone who's been jumping for a while.

    The rate of descent increased as a parachute (square, ram air canopy) banks. The sharper the turn, the faster the descent. The hook turn swings the jumper fast, like a pendulum, and an experienced jumper will guesstimate ending the swing at about the same time as his or her feet would touch the ground. The margin of error for a hook turn, by an experienced jumper riding a small canopy (the more experience the smaller the canopy), is between 5' and 10'.

    Start the turn too soon, and you'll end up 3' to 10' above the ground, with a stalled parachute, falling straight down. On a good day, a few bruises or a parachute landing fall, a dirty jump suit, and teasing from your pals. On a bad day, a twisted or broken ankle, yet survivable.

    Start the turn too late, and you'll slam the ground with enough force to kill you. And remember: too late is a difference of only about 5'.

    Even if the turn starts fine, and the jumper is the king of experienced up jumpers, other factors may come into play. A little thermal near the ground may force the canopy up or sideways near the ground. Or a cold air pocket (e.g. flying over a small puddle, or a dark patch on the ground) may drop the canopy a few feet faster.

    Most if not all drop zones since at least 1994 ban people caught doing hook turns because of the danger they present to the jumpers doing them and others around them. Every once in a while some hot shot with a few thousand jumps thinks he's above physics and chance, and does a bandit turn if nobody is watching.

    Maybe Cédric ran out of air on final and thought that hooking the turn would help him land into the wind. Maybe he was just hot dogging. Regardless, if he was an up jumper and he did a hook turn, he should've known better and performed a different maneuver. Sad to loose him, but not feeling sorry about the accident itself. Stuff like this is what gives a bad reputation to skydiving in the eyes of people with little or no knowledge of the sport.

    Cheers!

    --
    http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
    1. Re:Hook turn maneuver by OhANameWhatName · · Score: 3

      Even if the turn starts fine, and the jumper is the king of experienced up jumpers, other factors may come into play

      What would a gust of air from the blades of a silent black helicopter do?

  9. friends. by capaslash · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I wonder if it will be friends with me?" - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

  10. Re:look out below ! by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Personally, I love Seneca's sentiment: “What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”

    Besides that is a pretty epic way to die.

    I'm more of a Mel Brooks guy:

    "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

    Or maybe Hemmingway:

    " . . . all stories, if continued far enough, end in death . . ."

    --
    I am not a crackpot.
  11. Re:look out below ! by ihtoit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    no... the impact is what killed him. We are all subject to the effects of gravity 24/7. Difference is how far off the ground you are when you start your freefall.

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  12. Rich People problem's day by Frankie70 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rich People problems day on Slashdot
    - Skydiving Accident Leaves Security Guru Cedric 'Sid' Blancher Dead At 37
    - Rigging Up Baby - the rise of extreme baby monitoring

  13. Re:look out below ! by CRCulver · · Score: 3, Informative

    Stalin never said that. Please don't perpetuate spurious quotations.

  14. Re: look out below ! by rvw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At least he died doing what he loved!

    I'd rather die at 73 mowing the lawn than at 37 while skydiving or having hot sex.