Two weeks after their marriage, Clayton Butler watched his wife, Amanda Bellows, plunge 2,000 feet to her death after her parachute failed to open during a base jump attempt near Zion National Park on Saturday, Feb. 8, the Associated Press reported.
The newlywed couple from Salt Lake City hiked to the top of Mount Kinesava near the park. They were both extreme sport athletes, experienced in base jumping and sky diving.
Bellows jumped first at around 4 p.m. local time. When her parachute didn't open, Butler, 29, jumped after her but could not reach her in time. It took two hours for him to hike back down the mountain and inform park officials.
The couple was married on Jan. 24.
This was the first base jumping fatality at Zion where the extreme sport is banned.
BASE is an acronym for building, antenna, span (bridge) and earth (cliffs) – the four places from which jumpers launch.
In January, a 23-year-old base jumper, Ash Cosgriff, plunged to his death from Australia's tallest structure, owing to a parachute malfunction.
A crowd-sourced database of jumpers lists over 200 people who have died base jumping since 1981, according to a New York Times report from last year. From June 2012 to July 2013, 22 base jumpers died.
