Who Is Managing KL Tower BASE Jump Applications Now?
Gary Cunningham 04 January 2023
I have been receiving many enquiries about the upcoming KL Tower BASE jumping event, even though I was expelled from KL Tower a few years back after I made efforts to neutralise the growing ridiculous level of negligence of event contractors and new KL Tower management.
The main question asked is "Who is managing KL Tower BASE Jump applications now?".
From what I understand, the person now managing KL Tower BASE Jump applications is someone who was rejected from the event just three KL Tower events ago due to his ultralow level of experience and continuing to be dishonest. This person is Adi Khirman Marji or Dewa Dunia on Facebook.
After Adi was rejected from the event, I offered him an opportunity to learn more about BASE jumping and all the issues we have experienced at events, but he was not interested in that. Then, as a novice BASE jumper with minimal knowledge, he soon moved on to being involved in organising an event at a location that we knew was guaranteed to quickly result in a fatality. Adi stood out as someone in a rush to repeat the tragic past.
After the expected fatality eventuated in 2021, Adi united the beginner Malaysian BASE jumpers to declare what he described as “war” against anyone who tried to educate them about the naïve and reckless way they approached BASE jumping (primarily myself). This only set them up for more broken Malaysian BASE jumpers last year in 2022, when they insisted on remaining in strong denial of warnings given.
It is interesting to see the qualities that KL Tower promotes for their BASE jumping events now.
Ali’s 2017 Event Application With Massively Overstated Experience
I first became aware of Adi when I received his application for KL Tower BASE Jump 2017, claiming that he had 166 BASE jumps. I knew the basic experience of all Malaysian BASE jumpers (there are not many of them) since BASE jumping started there 17 years prior. Adi’s experience stood out as massively overstated for a Malaysian BASE jumper that I had never heard of before. To try to further promote his deception, Adi also posted on his Facebook page at the time claiming he was now qualified to BASE jump at the KL Tower event.
Before querying Adi more, I first consulted with Malaysian BASE jumper Azuan Taharudin (RIP) to get more of a feel of Adi’s actual BASE jumping experience. Azuan was one of the few Malaysian BASE jumpers who was a straight talker, so I had high respect for him. He could only laugh at Adi’s claim of 166 BASE jumps. He compared another Malaysian BASE jumper who had much more experience than Adi but had not reached 100 BASE jumps yet. Azuan’s beliefs were aligned with my gut instincts that Adi had massively overstated his experience.
I then asked event co-organiser Aziz Ahmad about Adi, but Aziz is not known to give accurate information when it comes to BASE jumper’s experience. I informed Aziz that Adi claimed to have 166 BASE jumps, and then I asked him how many BASE jumps he thought Adi had. Aziz replied stating that he had just checked with Adi and he had a typo on his application, now claiming it was meant to be 116 BASE jumps. Aziz’s response came within seconds, which left me feeling that he did not check with Adi and made up the cover story himself. Either way, Aziz would have known Adi’s real experience and was avoiding directly answering the question of how many BASE jumps he believed Adi had. 116 BASE jumps still seemed overstated for a new Malaysia BASE jumper I had not heard of before, and I already had reasonable confirmation from Azuan that Adi’s experience was much lower. Aziz usually saves his Malaysian spin for gullible KL Tower managers and media. He knows I see through all the deception and it only earns him disrespect.
When I next queried Adi, he had collaborated with Aziz to give the same story, now claiming he had 116 BASE jumps. I made it clear that I knew his experience was still overstated and I asked him for a breakdown of how many jumps he had done of each object.
Adi then came back with a total of 73 BASE jumps.
- 30 from a cliff.
- 37 from buildings.
- 5 from paragliders (which is not really a BASE jump)
- 1 from a balloon (which I assume was a tethered balloon I knew had been jumped in Malaysia).
37 BASE jumps from buildings seemed like a high number of building jumps outside of events for a new Malaysian BASE jumper. I again consulted with Azuan who was amused that Adi’s total had gone from 166, to 116, and now to 73 (or 68 excluding paraglider jumps). Asking Azuan if it was possible that Adi had done 37 building jumps, he just laughed even more stating that it is a lot of unauthorised BASE jumps for a new BASE jumper to do without anyone in the small Malaysian BASE jumping community knowing about it. Azuan described some of the Malaysian BASE jumpers who are in a rush as very stubborn people who cannot be educated. It had always been the case that most Malaysian BASE jumpers had learnt just enough to be a danger to themselves and others. They had all skipped learning the basics of BASE jumping safety and expected to be excelled into high-profile building events without sufficient knowledge or skills.
I left it at that and did not probe any further, as I did not want to give Adi the opportunity to lie to me a 4th time. I liked to try to help the Malaysians as much as possible, but not if they just wanted to lie to me. While I was not interested in taking on the liability of Adi jumping at the event, I offered him a spot as part of the event crew where could learn much more about BASE jumping and about all the common mistakes that much more experienced BASE jumpers still make at the event. It would prepare him to be a much more desirable and capable participant in the future. But he was not interested in that.
Continued Problems With Aziz Ahmad Undermining Event Standards and Safety
Aziz still had not learnt from his constant undermining of event standards and safety which had brought many problems to events in the past. He was notorious for bringing people with little or no BASE jumping experience to high-profile building events, who of course usually crashed into the buildings or other objects with insufficient knowledge and skills. It was a significant factor in many buildings discontinuing BASE jumping. Building owners who permitted BASE jumping events to be hosted at their buildings expected Aziz to have a much higher level of integrity, but Aziz seemed to have no sense of the duty of care he was expected to have. He had been brought into BASE jumping taking high risks, and that is the way he remained with seemingly no care of the likely damage to people and property.
Aziz should have learnt better from the incidents he had as a beginner BASE jumper with insufficient knowledge, skills, or training. He was the first person to get seriously injured crashing into KL Tower, breaking his femur into a few pieces with only about 30 BASE jumps in 2004. A couple of years later, after he recovered, he ended up front page news hung up on the five-story podium at the Komtar building in Penang in 2006. This was again due to his lack of experience and skill. Most people, even without experiencing the accidents Aziz had, would have the foresight to realise that it is a very bad idea to bring people with little or no experience to high-profile BASE jumping events.
Aziz, with very limited knowledge and experience himself, soon started insisting on bringing other people to events who had little or no BASE jumping experience. He developed a side business of renting gear to beginner BASE jumpers he brought to building events, so he had extra incentive to be highly irresponsible.
BASE jumping events quickly excelled in Malaysia as we developed an event series that included several buildings. It soon became clear that the event series would not last long as KL Tower managers started to become erratic. Misguided by Aziz and other novice Malaysian BASE jumpers, they started organising their event series in a naive and reckless manner. Trying to maintain basic event standards to make the event series more sustainable, I was soon pushed out of the organising role I had. The Malaysian beginners insisted that they knew much better than one of the most experienced building jumpers in the world.
I watched the mayhem unfold as they were in a rush to get more beginner Malaysians BASE jumping at their event series. Telekom Malaysia funded gear for the Malaysian beginners, but Aziz selected parachutes that were way too big for them. They were expected to do their first jumps on the oversized parachutes into a small enclosed landing area in front of VIPs at Alor Setar Tower. One overshot crashing into the tent where the Sultan of Kedah was sitting, others overshot crashing into trees above the tent. At the next building in Penang, one ended up with back injuries trying not to overshoot the landing area (the same place Aziz was left hanging 5 stories up the year before).
The chaos continued the following year in 2008 when Aziz brought an Indonesian skydiver to the event with no prior BASE jumping experience. He was taken to the highly sensitive Telekom Malaysia headquarters building (aka the Shark Fin building) which we had worked for years to get permission to jump from. The beginner jumped off and turned to face the building, he pitched his pilot chute while facing the building and crashed into the building soon after opening. He continued to crash into the building most of the way down. It greatly contributed to BASE jumping soon being discontinued there. I am sure Telekom Malaysia executives expected a bit more than beginners with practically zero training or experience being taken there to jump.
The event series we had built up with multiple buildings quickly collapsed as novice Malaysian BASE jumpers took full control. Another novice Malaysian BASE jumper put in charge followed Aziz’s lead to open up events to all beginners as no one had died yet. As expected, and as prewarned, it quickly led to a death of a beginner with 20 BASE jumps at Alor Setar Tower in 2010. A week later a few others opened their parachutes as they were going through trees at KL Tower. Alor Setar Tower was the last of the buildings discontinued on the KL Tower circuit of buildings, which had previously expanded to an 8 building event. We were now left with only KL Tower.
Aziz clearly understood that they were organising BASE jumping events in a highly reckless manner. He was the person who showed my pre-warnings of the deadly results they achieved at Alor Setar Tower to the new KL Tower CEO, and led the push to have me reinstated as head BASE jumping organiser of the event. Aziz and I were tasked with bringing back reasonable standards and a level of integrity to the KL Tower BASE Jump event in 2011. But Aziz went straight back to bringing skydivers with zero experience to the event who were given essentially no training. As expected, one tumbled off KL Tower crashing into it on opening, and another with minimal skydiving experience crashed in elsewhere. If a death the previous year did not stop Aziz from being highly irresponsible, then nothing would.
When Aziz tried to continue the unacceptable practice of bringing inexperienced people to the event in 2012, I officially put a stop to it before he got more people seriously injured or killed. Aziz was furious about this, but there was nothing he could do about it except wait a few years for new corrupt or gullible KL Tower management to come along. The more astute KL Tower CEO at the time rightfully wanted to remove Aziz from the event for his failings in several areas. However, I campaigned to keep him involved with some aspects of the event, due to the massive help he had been in the past. It was something I would soon start to regret with Aziz only becoming a growing liability.
A couple of years later Aziz was back to being very irresponsible. We finally reopened a building event in Sabah that had been discontinued for a few years. However, Aziz insisted on letting a beginner I had rejected jump at the event. Aziz had signed the contract with the building that he would be responsible for anything that happened, so it was his liability. He was probably in breach of contract by not ensuring all participants had an expected minimum level of experience. The beginner was the first to hit the building smashing a window. By the end of the event, Aziz was left with a RM30000 repair bill for the damage to the building which he never paid. It was yet another nice building that would be permanently shut down for BASE jumping.
Aziz still never learnt. The problems grew with Aziz becoming more rebellious as we started clamping down on his many areas of negligence. KL Tower managers increased the pressure to stem the constant flow of tower strikes at the event, as they should have. But in 2015 Aziz was insistent on doing everything that ensured BASE jumpers kept crashing into KL Tower. Aziz was supposed to be replaced that year. But again, we were left with an untrained crew provided by Aziz which resulted in a BASE jumper lying unconscious on the ground floor roof after hitting the tower multiple times.
In 2016, the climate at KL Tower changed with a new Head Of Events appointed. Again, Aziz and all the unsatisfactory things he provided for the event were supposed to be replaced with a more capable and well-trained crew. But Aziz strangely had suddenly become a protected species with someone in upper management insisting he be rehired. During the event, it was almost like he was intentionally sabotaging participant safety, refusing to fulfil the expected duty of care that he was hired to do.
In 2017, to finally put a stop to what had become a ridiculous level of negligence, I replaced everything that Aziz was still paid to provide for the event with something much more acceptable. It resulted in being the most successful year in eliminating serious types of accidents from the event. It was a great achievement to finally eliminate tower strikes for the first time in the 17 year history of the event.
Finally neutralising Aziz’s negligence, I was hoping we could get back to a point where I might be more comfortable reintroducing a sustainable multi-building event series in the future. However, Aziz had the new KL Tower managers eating out of his hands. The new KL Tower management, presumably guided by Aziz, insisted that none of the event safety issues were real, despite a long history of serious injuries and a death. I was expelled from events, threatened with legal action, and practically run out of Malaysia. The new KL Tower management and Aziz were keen to go back to the naïve and reckless way of organising events, which no doubt would lead to the same tragic result as last time novice Malaysians took over events. The following year they were back to a record number of tower strikes. International BASE jumpers also seemed keen to tear down any event series we had, and adopt the reckless Malaysian hit-and-run approach, encouraging the novice Malaysian BASE jumpers every step of the way.
In 2019 when Aziz was given full control of KL Tower events, he led the carnage almost getting himself and another beginner killed in a serious canopy collision they had due to their inexperience.
Organising BASE Jumping Events That Were Guaranteed To Kill
As a beginner BASE jumper with limited knowledge, Adi teamed up with Aziz to start organising events at the Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry building in Putrajaya in 2020. It was a building that I had done one display jump from in 2014. I was horrified by the manner that the display jump I did was conducted, without the opportunity to do a good assessment of the building, and by the novice organiser trying to rush people to jump off into a headwind.
While most BASE jumpers only saw it as an easy jump, the building stood out to me as one that would result in a fatality within a relatively small number of jumps done off it. This conclusion was simply a matter of knowing the high rate of building strikes that happen at Malaysian BASE jumping events, coupled with knowledge about the results of hitting objects with features similar to this building. A fatality there would likely be accelerated even more by the naïve and reckless manner that Malaysians have always organised BASE jumping events.
Event organisers and all the BASE jumpers invited to jump off the building were either oblivious to the expected outcome, or in total denial of it. Some people invited had an ultralow level of BASE jumping experience. A BASE jumper got lucky cheating death at the 2020 event when he got hung up on a light halfway up the building.
Sadly, during the next practice jumping session there for a Federal Territories Day 2021 display, Malaysian BASE jumper Azuan Taharudin was the unlucky person that fell victim to the expected fatal results of jumping from this building. His brutal death was traumatising for the crowd of spectators to watch. Calculations on how long it would take for a fatality to occur proved to be deadly accurate. It was an identical timeframe that it took for a fatality to happen the previous time novice Malaysians took over organising events. 20 years of BASE jumping events in Malaysia have so far consistently shown that doing the same wrong things results in the same types of incidents within the same timeframes. It is a good thing that BASE jumping is currently discontinued at the Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry building, as the same tragic result is guaranteed to happen again if jumping is ever resumed there.
Adi Declares War On Those Trying To Educate Malaysians About Their Naive And Reckless Approach To BASE Jumping
Several months after the fatality, Adi took great offence that I tried to educate Malaysian BASE jumpers and building managers about their naïve and reckless approach to BASE jumping. He united the beginner Malaysian BASE jumpers to declare what he described as “war” with me. As a group, they suddenly had the courage to voice their outrage.
Adi’s main complaint seemed to be that highlighting my experiences during two decades of events in Malaysia is degrading to Malaysians. He failed to realise that his own deception, and the deviousness and deception of a few Malaysians is what degrades the image of his country. He seemed quite perplexed why these qualities did not earn high respect. The majority of Malaysians that I have experienced were wonderful people.
As for the Malaysian BASE jumpers, there are a few I have respect for. But as other Malaysians point out, the new Malaysian BASE jumpers are all in a rush to be a star without acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. They all want to try to take shortcuts to get to the top. This is a common attitude for some new BASE jumpers who soon become complacent and reckless. They start believing they know it all and cannot be told by those who have vast experience. It usually does not take long for them to get themselves or other followers seriously injured or killed.
The sad reality is that Adi was only successful in uniting the beginner Malaysian BASE jumpers to reject what we had learnt from 2 decades of BASE jumping events in Malaysia. It only set them up for more Malaysians to get seriously injured at their next event. As Azuan (RIP) previously told me, they were stubborn people who could not be educated. It was disappointing that Azuan lost his life and most of them still never learnt from it.
Follow-Up Events After A Fatality
After a fatality, most BASE jumping event organisers would work at stepping up the level of event standards and safety. But this has never been the case with Malaysian BASE jumpers. They always appear to be in a rush to naively step up the risks, which only ensures more serious accidents or another death will happen. They never seemed to have learnt that BASE jumping is not about pushing sensible limits until they get more people seriously injured or killed.
The next target building for the novice Malaysian BASE jumpers was a new tower, Kuantan 188. It was a similar height to Alor Setar Tower, but the landing area was much smaller, and more cluttered with many more trees and lamp posts to hit. So it was expected to see more severe landing accidents, compared to what had previously been experienced at Alor Setar Tower. For initial trial jumps, it is sensible to only take the most competent and experienced BASE jumpers to get a real feel of the place. They should be people who have the foresight to see the issues that less experienced BASE jumpers will have. That generally rules out all the Malaysian BASE jumpers. But the Malaysian BASE jumpers like to do everything in a naive high-risk manner. They took their beginners there to see what they could get away with. One of them appeared to get knocked unconscious after crashing into a tree trunk. He was taken to hospital and got some stitches in the back of his head. He was very lucky not to be more seriously injured or killed.
A person does not need too much intelligence to come that the conclusion that if an accident like that is happening after just a few trial jumps, then at a bigger event they will have more of the same, and possibly more serious injuries. Even without trial jumps we already had the foresight that this would happen from vast experience at other comparable locations. After I found a video of the incident online and pointed out the results they would get in the future, Malaysian BASE jumpers went into strong denial. They just downplayed the incident, insisting it was not a problem. But I have seen less severe incidents that have ended up in death. Even the most basic of incidents should be taken seriously, as it has always proven to be an indicator of similar future incidents that can have much more horrific results.
A few months later they had a full event at Kuantan 188. With some participants not being aware of the incident that happened during the trial jumps, it appears the organisers did not even brief other participants about the previous serious incident, or how to adjust their flying style to try to avoid a similar problem.
On the first day of the Kuantan 188 event, another Malaysian BASE jumper hit a tree as expected. This time the injuries were more severe with a broken femur and ankle. It was another incident that could have just as easily resulted in death.
I was actually invited to the event, but a few days before arriving in Malaysia I was informed that the head of Kuantan 188 decided I was no longer welcome there. It is presumably because they did not like the warnings I gave about the actual results they got. The head of Kuantan 188, Dato' Zulkifli Mohamad, was previously CEO of KL Tower from 2005 to 2010. He initially excelled Malaysian BASE jumping events during that time, but he soon led them down a naive and reckless path. It soon resulted in most events getting shut down, and the first BASE jumping fatality in Malaysia. Back then he stood out as a man who could not be told. He liked to surround himself with "yes" men who were happy to misguide him. When his events started falling apart he was heard saying to his staff that he regretted not listening to me. He still seems to be a man that cannot be told and would prefer to get people seriously injured or killed, rather than be educated about the harsh realities of BASE jumping. Had he been willing to conduct BASE jumping events in a more sensible manner, they would have excelled much further.
Back To Running First Jump Course Off A Solid Building
The next building event was at Wisma Sanyan in Sibu. Malaysian organisers thought it was a great idea to run the Malaysian version of a first jump course off this solid sheer building. No professional BASE jumping instructor in the world would do this, as they know it would inevitably lead to serious problems. Many experienced BASE jumpers have crashed into Wisma Sanyan and other surrounding objects. It has resulted in smashed building windows, dented cars, multiple broken bones, sliced-up BASE jumpers, and even a brain injury. Organisers naively insisted it was impossible for their first jump students to hit the building. To me, it only seemed they were off to a bad start in BASE jumping, being taught to make poor risky decisions with a level of denial. They certainly did not have the honed skills to deal with the known potential issues, which all BASE jumpers should have before attempting to jump from a solid object. The vast majority of people learning to BASE jump nowadays travel to an appropriate much more forgiving place to learn, such as a bridge.
So who is teaching the Malaysians to try their first BASE jump from solid buildings? The new Malaysian BASE jumping instructor is Idros Yusop. He is the same novice Malaysian BASE jumper who was appointed as KL Tower BASE organiser in 2009-2010. He was the person that decayed events experience requirements to practically zero, which quickly brought the death of a beginner with 20 BASE jumps to Malaysian BASE jumping events. His contract with KL Tower was not renewed after that and he stopped BASE jumping. 4 years later in 2014 he reappeared, organising a display jump off the deadly Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry building in Putrajaya. During this poorly set-up jump, he was rushing everyone to get off into a headwind, which is well known to increase the chance of slamming into the building. He had no understanding of how much he was inviting another death to happen. Despite his claims at the time to have high-up connections to open many building events, I refused to get involved with him due to his naive and reckless approach to BASE jumping, which would quickly get any event shut down.
Now he resurfaced again in 2022, with little or no BASE jumps since 2010, to start teaching beginners to jump off a solid building for their first jump. He is probably also the person who helped the head of Kuantan 188 decide that I am not welcome there. While he is otherwise a nice person, I consider his decision-making with regards to BASE jumping as very poor.
