"You know what? When they ask me what I felt during the flight, I don't know what to say. I was super focused. I had so many things to do perfectly, I was worried about so many details... Everything had to go well. When I landed, I enjoyed it, I felt an explosion of happiness. I was exhausted, but then I celebrated."
On March 22, at the West Tennessee skydiving center in the United States, the Chilean Sebastián Álvarez boarded a propeller plane, ascended to 12,670 meters, and decided to jump without a parachute. Did he want to kill himself? Quite the opposite. It was the culmination of his career in the air, the celebration of a lifetime. Álvarez broke all records for flights with the extremely dangerous wingsuits: he reached a maximum speed of 342 mph, covered 53.45 kilometers - a distance similar to the one between Madrid and Guadalajara - and glided for just over 11 minutes. Any previous record is incomparable. Instead of flying from a high place, as he had done so many times on Mont Blanc or the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai, he decided to do it from beyond the clouds, higher than any commercial plane.
Due to the initial altitude, 39-year-old Álvarez, nicknamed Ardilla (Squirrel), had to face two seemingly insurmountable obstacles: extremely low temperatures and lack of oxygen. "The oxygen issue took us the longest," he acknowledges the specialist in a conversation with EL MUNDO from Munich, where he is currently participating in several events sponsored by Red Bull.
At such a high altitude, he risked losing consciousness before reaching the first minute of flight, he needed an oxygen bottle, but the weight was against him. In the end, they managed to adapt a harness to carry a bottle on his chest, although this forced him to lose four kilos. "Then we realized that at these temperatures, the exhalation valve of the mask would freeze, so we designed a special helmet to cover it," he recalls. He also used an electrically heated layered clothing system to withstand temperatures as low as -70 degrees.
Álvarez explains that the preparation took two years due to the challenges posed by the equipment, but also because of the need to feel prepared. He practiced for hours in the wind tunnel at Bromma airport in Stockholm and followed a specific strength program focused on his back, chest, shoulders, and arms. "Although I believe that the most important part of the training was the many years I have been practicing with the wingsuit and the over 1,050 jumps I had already completed in my life," he points out.
"My profession is a military pilot, I spent years in the Chilean Air Force. In my training to fly planes and helicopters, they taught me to parachute jump and I loved it. For many years, I dedicated myself to skydiving until I tried wingsuit flying 15 years ago at the Lodi center in California, which was then one of the best places in the world. Since then, I haven't stopped. Technology has improved a lot, and it is becoming safer."
Before his record-breaking flight a few weeks ago, Álvarez had already completed memorable jumps, such as flying parallel to a small plane, even touching it, overflying Montserrat. According to him, Skydive Empuriabrava on the Costa Brava is one of the best places for skydiving in Europe. "I love Spain and I love seeing the world from the air, although in recent years, so much traveling has taken its toll on me. That's the downside of dedicating myself to skydiving. I am constantly on the move around the world, it's demanding," Álvarez concludes.