Article

KL Tower Managers Threatened Legal Action After Exposing Their Deviousness

By Gary Cunningham

Introduction

It was always a dangerous time for BASE jumping events whenever new management were appointed to KL Tower. Their understanding of the high risks and precautions required for BASE jumping started again from zero. With a high level of naivety, new management often mistook BASE jumping for an activity where they felt it was acceptable to push the hard learnt sensible limits until someone gets seriously injured or killed. There was never any shortage of “yes-men” willing to misguide KL Tower management into believing that all the serious issues experienced every year were not a real problem. New KL Tower management would seek out people who would give them false assurances that their desire to naively be irresponsible was okay. Many BASE jumpers who came to the event had similar beliefs that the well-known issues experienced every year were not really a problem and insisted that they would not happen again. But every year the same issues would happen, usually resulting in serious injuries. This strong level of denial always continued.

Being by far the most experienced person in the world when it came to BASE jumping events off buildings, it was my job to try to stop all the issues from happening and ensure that a proper duty of care and reasonable standards were maintained. Twice this has led to my expulsion from organising the event when new KL Tower managers took exception to me neutralising the negligence at their events while trying to keep their BASE jumping events on a safe and sensible path. Their attitude was not too dissimilar to that of novice reckless BASE jumpers who cannot be told and soon get themselves seriously injured or killed. But in the case of new KL Tower managers, they were naively condemning the well-being and lives of others.

The first time that I was thrown out of organising events, KL Tower managers insisted on ignoring all warnings and started organising events in a naive and reckless manner. Tragically, it quickly led to a death just like I prewarned event managers it would. It was disappointing that it took a fatality before they started to take notice of and accept what they had been prewarned about. It was a period in which I learnt how easy it was for everyone, including myself, to be lured into adopting the complacent and carefree attitude and just letting it happen.

After the fatality, another new and more astute KL Tower CEO, who had a deceased BASE jumper to deal with just two weeks into the job, quickly rehired me again to put Malaysian BASE jumping back on a responsible path. The horror of a novice BASE jumper fatally impacting at high speed just 10 meters away from me, gave me the determination and drive to work tirelessly to try to ensure that it never happened again. I was willing to help the new KL Tower CEO sweep the negligence of past managers under the carpet, as long as they were seen as making an effort to be more responsible and raise the integrity of future events with more acceptable standards. The lessons were learnt by KL Tower management, but disappointingly not by some event contractors who immediately tried to continue in a negligent manner.

When new management came along several years later, and the negligence of local event contractors had risen to a ridiculous level, the cycle started again. I finally neutralised the negligence of local event contractors which had always been a major factor in BASE jumpers continuing to crash into the KL Tower and get seriously injured every year. This was immediately successful at eliminating tower strikes from the event for the first time ever, along with greatly reducing other incidents. Past management would have been very thankful for this, but under new management, it again resulted in me being expelled from the event. This time the fallout from very naive new KL Tower management became much more vindictive.

The new KL Tower management had little understanding or care that they were heading back down the dark path that would bring back a record number of tower strikes and other incidents to their event, and accelerate the next fatality in Malaysian BASE jumping. The results were all very predictable as they were practically following the same sequence of events and had the same attitudes that led to the first BASE jumping fatality in Malaysia.

Event contractor Aziz Ahmad, whose negligence I had worked hard to neutralise, was tasked with finding someone to replace me. Instead of selecting a qualified person who had vast experience at KL Tower and a great understanding of all the issues, he selected Avery Badenhop who had very limited experience at the event. This was despite Aziz stating several years prior that Avery could never be invited back to Malaysian BASE jumping events due to his criminal activities now being on public record with a conviction. It seems Aziz had a change of mind about this now that his own integrity was in question. Now that Avery was finally out of prison, he was a perfect partner in crime with Aziz to continue the level of negligence seen at the events. Avery was also the perfect person to help new KL Tower managers carry out their level of deviousness.

Sibu Participants Receive Messages About Ban From KL Tower

The vindictive nature of the new KL Tower management first came to light when their new novice BASE organiser Avery Badenhop sent messages to many Sibu BASE Jump participants informing them that KL Tower had requested he ban all Sibu BASE Jump participants from the KL Tower event.

Sibu BASE Jump was an extra bonus event I had organised alongside the KL Tower event for a decade. It had always boosted the attendance of the KL Tower BASE Jump event in the past, as it made it more worthwhile for BASE jumpers from around the world to travel to Malaysia. The two events complemented each other well, along with another small bonus event off a cliff at Gua Damai. All three events were always treated as one event series. There was no reason for KL Tower managers to want to destroy these other events which enhanced the experience of visitors to Malaysia.

The ban on Sibu BASE jump participants was clearly meant to be an attack on me, but the victims were many visitors to Malaysia, and the city of Sibu who were hosting the 10th anniversary of their annual BASE jumping event.

The messages Avery sent about the ban varied depending on the person they were sent to. Some Sibu BASE jump participants he outright banned from the KL Tower BASE Jump event, citing that the reason was that KL Tower is banning Sibu BASE jump participants. He told others that he had refused to go ahead with the ban, but continued to warn them to keep low-key and not to wear any Sibu T-shirts at KL Tower. Others were told that they will not be banned from KL Tower, but it would be looked on negatively if they go to Sibu. It is uncertain exactly what that was supposed to mean, but it left the feeling that they may be overlooked or be low priority for selection in future events if they participate in the Sibu BASE jump event.

It was no surprise to see many BASE jumpers suddenly cancel their participation in the Sibu BASE Jump event soon after this.

Helping to Promote KL Tower's New Event Policy

KL Tower Managers Threaten Legal Action In An Effort To Coverup The Misconduct

I was not going to be intimidated by the new corporate bullies at KL Tower. Instead of caving into their demands, I requested that they were the ones who make a public apology to Sibu BASE Jump participants, and to the town of Sibu, for the ban that either they requested, or their new representative Avery Badenhop made up. In addition to this, I requested they publicly apologise to previous KL Tower BASE jump participants who were affected by past negligence.

I also publicly asked for clarification about which of my statements they believed were false, re-iterating each of my previous published statements in greater detail explaining why they were true. It was all valuable information about things that needed to be rectified to help prevent BASE jumpers from being seriously injured or killed, and to also help to transform the event back into the respected and enjoyable event it used to be. Instead of fixing the problems, KL Tower management chose to continue on a strong path of denial.

If KL Tower managers wanted to make threats of legal action then they would need to take it all the way. I had reasonable evidence to back up every statement that I made. If their new representative Avery Badenhop was misrepresenting KL Tower management then they should have taken action against him and not me. As for my allegations of past negligence, I would fight them with all the vigour and ferocity that I had to try to prevent more friends from getting seriously injured and killed at BASE jumping events in Malaysia. I had seen the horrific results up way too close before, and it was only a matter of time before the high level of naivety and denial led to the next preventable tragedy.

New Sibu Resident Charles Siaw Helps KL Tower Managers Cover-Up Misconduct

Upon seeing my promotion of KL Tower’s policy to ban Sibu BASE jump participants, the new Sibu Resident Charles Siaw travelled to KL Tower to have a meeting with the new KL Tower CEO and other managers. Being new to his position, Sibu Resident Charles Siaw had no prior experience with BASE jumping events. I had never met or communicated with him before.

Did Avery Make Up The Request To Ban Sibu Participants?

The initial list Avery created for KL Tower participants was done fairly secretively. It was not open to a large number of Sibu BASE jump participants, as the first most of us heard about it was after someone mentioned they were on a list that was overfull and closed. So to start with Avery already had no intention of giving the majority of Sibu BASE Jump participants any chance of being included in the KL Tower event.

Before KL Tower’s alleged ban of Sibu participants came to light, I had already been informed by a Malaysian who was involved with BASE jumping events that Avery had planned to boycott the Sibu BASE Jump event. This indicated that Avery already had some negativity with the Sibu event.

It was also widely believed that one of Avery’s sponsors had given him a list of BASE jumpers that they wanted to be blocked from participating in the KL Tower event because the BASE jumpers did not support their brand. Avery’s sponsor had nothing to do with the KL Tower event and Avery was not doing his own due diligence. Some of these were Sibu BASE Jump participants.

All of these factors suggest the possibility that Avery made up KL Tower’s ban of Sibu BASE jumpers himself as a reason not to invite certain people, and to fuel his own vendetta.

But there were still a number of reasons to believe KL Tower actually made the request to ban Sibu BASE jumpers. Their inappropriate response threatening to take legal action against me for exposing the ban, rather than taking action against Avery Badenhop for misrepresenting them, is suggestive that they were guilty of requesting the ban. They continued to strongly support their new representative even though he portrayed them as devious people out to destroy Sibu BASE Jump.

The main evidence which suggests that KL Tower managers actually did request their new representative Avery Badenhop to ban Sibu BASE jump participants was a comment from the KL Tower Chief Project Officer when an event contractor asked him about it. The contractor was told that Avery had refused to carry out the ban. This is in line with what Avery told some of the Sibu participants. But it still did not stop Avery from banning some Sibu participants, stating that KL Tower is banning Sibu BASE jumpers. He also felt the need to highlight to some BASE jumpers that it would be a sensitive issue at KL Tower if they were seen to be Sibu BASE Jump participants. It seemed that both Avery and KL Tower managers were guilty of bringing KL Tower into disrepute.

While I had seen past KL Tower management making very poor decisions due to a high level of naivety and being misled, they always stood out as decent and well-meaning people who were very welcoming and put effort into maximising the experience of visitors to Malaysia. I would never imagine them stooping to such an unprofessional level. But we had already seen that the new KL Tower management were very different people after we experienced the new KL Tower Head of Events Department for the previous 2 years starting in 2016. The new attitudes at KL Tower instantly decayed the event. At the end of the 2017 event BASE jumpers commented that it stood out that KL Tower management really did not want us there. It was very different to the usual welcoming feeling we had always previously received. They also stood out as having no care for the safety of their high-risk events, trying to impede all efforts to provide an acceptable level of safety.

It did not make sense for KL Tower managers to hire someone who had very limited experience at KL Tower to manage a high-risk event that had a long history of accidents. Avery was grossly unqualified compared to many people who I would class as qualified. It really needs a person who had vast experience at KL Tower with good knowledge of all the past issues experienced and all the preventative measures that needed to be put in place to combat them. They need to know what they can expect in all the various conditions and be able to educate BASE jumpers on how to best deal with them. They should be able to maximise jumping in most conditions, knowing when to change to alternate landing areas, and the rare times that jumping should be stopped.

It took me at least 14 years to be well-tuned to the majority of the issues at KL Tower, with good first-hand knowledge of jumping in all conditions accumulated over the 925 jumps I had done there. Avery had a very limited number of jumps off KL Tower. His only recent experience at KL Tower was the previous year which was mostly in ideal conditions. He has certainly not been around to get a real feel for the problems we learnt about over many years. He had no chance at briefing BASE jumpers about all the issues that he had no idea about. He was still in what I call the beginner range of BASE jumping, still having far less BASE jumping experience than I had 13 years prior when I first took over the event. Adding to this he had also been away from BASE jumping for several years which made him even less tuned.

If KL Tower did not want by far the most knowledgeable and qualified BASE organiser at their event, then there were other people who were reasonably qualified who had hundreds of jumps off KL Tower, many years of jumping there in all conditions, and a good understanding of most of the issues. But none of them would be willing to operate under the substandard conditions that naïve new KL Tower managers demanded. It appeared the new KL Tower management had no care about the safety of international visitors to their tower who were doing high-risk activities. They continued to approach their events with a high level of naivety, denial, and negligence.

It also did not make sense for KL Tower managers to promote someone as the tourism ambassador for an icon of Malaysia who had a questionable background like Avery had. He had recently been released from several years of prison for a crime that if he committed in Malaysia would carry the death penalty. While he was out on bail awaiting trial, he was again caught committing the same offence. Not the smartest or most trustworthy criminal. Many Malaysians found this totally unacceptable and it brought a dim view to KL Tower.

Avery was the perfect person to carry out a level of deviousness for KL Tower managers. It was not just the Sibu event they destroyed, but also another event off a cliff at Gua Damai that takes place the couple days before KL Tower. It is very unusual for BASE jumpers who are travelling from around the world to not take the opportunity to also jump from this cliff while they were in Malaysia. Some people mistook it for an event I organised, but I actually had no official involvement in organising it. Presumably, Avery did not make BASE jumpers aware of this extra opportunity while they are Malaysia, or possibly some BASE jumpers felt there may be consequences for attending this event also.

Meeting KL Tower Management

Just before I departed Malaysia to fly home after attending the Sibu BASE Jump 2018 event, KL Tower managers agreed to a meeting to discuss the statements I published which they claimed were false and had threatened to take legal action over. It was two days before the KL Tower BASE jumping event was due to start. This was the first-ever KL Tower BASE jumping event that I was not welcome to attend in the 18-year history of the event, and the first one that some of the Sibu BASE Jumpers were also not welcome to attend. The meeting started with the new CEO stating that he believed that there were no safety issues with their BASE jumping event. He stated that he believed that I was the only person who believed there was. I am not sure how the new KL Tower CEO came to these beliefs after there had been serious accidents at the KL Tower event every year. He seemed very certain of himself, but I found it hard to believe that a man in the responsible position of KL Tower CEO could be so naive and gullible. There was no indication of what he based his beliefs on.

I took his statement as an attempt to try to insult me, suggesting that the vast knowledge I had of all the serious accidents and issues that had happened throughout the history of the event was not real. It also showed great disrespect for those that had paid a high price in bloodshed, broken bones, and even a loss of life, for many of the issues to be learnt about at BASE jumping events organised by KL Tower.

Within minutes of meeting the new KL Tower CEO, he showed himself to be someone of great ignorance who could not be told. It sent alarm bells ringing as it was the same attitude that I had seen in the lead-up to the first BASE jumping fatality in Malaysia. The new KL Tower managers were already on the path to decay BASE jumping standards and safety to the point where another fatality was guaranteed in Malaysia in the not-too-distant future.

Another issue we discussed was the discontinuation of the rope swing which participants were not prewarned about. The rope swing had become the major drawcard for past events. The new KL Tower CEO put the blame on Avery for not wanting the rope swing. He also tried to tell me it was not popular compared to the crane launch point, so only the crane was kept as an extra novelty launch point. I was the person who compiled all jump statistics every year, so I knew this was false information. When the rope swing came along, it was a crane launch point that became not as popular. I also knew from my own feelings and the feelings of the majority of past event participants what we desired. KL Tower managers were either being grossly miss informed, or they were making it up themselves. It was strange that the new KL Tower CEO who had no knowledge about the subject was trying to give me false information about something I had intimate knowledge about. That goes for every aspect of the event. He was certainly a good salesman, sounding very believable with the highest level of confidence, but he was trying to sell his falsehoods to the one person who knew much better.

Since the KL Tower CEO was very new and so certain of himself, I was left wondering if an even better salesman had convinced him of all his false beliefs. His Malaysian BASE jumping advisor Aziz Ahmad had a long history of misguiding KL Tower management. Aziz had a predisposition of giving his superiors a Malaysian “yes” even when he knew the answer was no. It had always led to a lot of trouble for events that I always had to work hard to rectify. Aziz usually told event managers what he thought they wanted to hear and not what they needed to hear. The new KL Tower CEO also seemed to be relying on Avery Badenhop for advice. Avery simply did not have the experience at the event to have any knowledge or understanding of the re-occurring issues. He showed the same level of complacency and denial that many novice BASE jumpers have when they come to the event and soon crash in. It was no surprise that Avery crashed in at the event. It is highly likely the KL Tower CEO was feeding off misinformation from Aziz and Avery, rather than considering the wealth of information acquired from the long history of accidents and other problems at the event.

The final thing discussed was Avery’s messages to Sibu BASE Jump participants informing them that KL Tower managers requested they be banned from the KL Tower BASE jumping event. The KL Tower CEO strongly denied that any KL Tower manager requested Avery to ban Sibu BASE Jump participants. This implied that Avery was lying to everyone and misrepresenting KL Tower managers. They agreed to bring Avery into the meeting to give an explanation of the messages sent, however they wanted to speak to him privately first. The meeting was to be reconvened with Avery later in the afternoon. However, minutes after I left the initial meeting, the KL Tower events manager sent a message stating that Avery would not face me. It is unknown if they even requested Avery to join the meeting. They clearly did not want to resolve the matter, and it only left them looking more guilty.

The KL Tower manager had also agreed to consider letting the Sibu BASE jumpers that Avery had banned jump at KL Tower. Several of them were still waiting in Kuala Lumpur. However, this also did not eventuate.

Avery’s Fan Club Joined In The Denials

The KL Tower BASE jumper safety briefing took place the day after I met with KL Tower management. I had already travelled home to Australia, but I started to receive feedback from BASE jumpers at KL Tower. It seemed event participants were mostly dominated by USA BASE jumpers rather than the usual balanced mix of BASE jumpers from around the world. They were there to support and back up all of Avery’s decisions.

Another member of Avery’s support group spoke out about Avery’s discontinuation of the rope swing. I had actually known about it weeks in advance from sources within Malaysia. But international BASE jumpers who travelled to Malaysia with the expectation to do the rope swing had not been prewarned about it. He stated that during the safety briefing everyone agreed that they did not want the rope swing. But this only turned out to be a partial truth. A few of Avery’s USA support group that I question all stated that they had no interest in the rope swing. However, a few months later another participant recounted that there were many people upset in the briefing that the rope swing had been discontinued. They said that they would be very surprised if the rope swing was not brought back the following year due to the huge outcry about its removal from the event. So it appeared that Avery’s band of followers were distorting reality a bit, or they were just blind to anything outside of Avery’s support group.

I felt it was probably a good thing that the rope swing was removed while Avery was in charge of the event, as I had observed some potential safety issues with the rope swing that needed to be rectified which Avery had no idea about. This included improvements required in the setup of the rope swing, better education of BASE jumpers, and stronger supervision by knowledgeable and capable people. It is highly desirable for the rope swing to return to the event, but only when the event is responsibly organised by highly experienced and knowledgeable BASE jumpers. Avery fell well short of that, being still well within what I call the beginner range.

Regular KL Tower participants reported that the briefing mostly consisted of a band of USA BASE jumpers stating how great they are (in true USA style). Very little of the regular safety information was provided about common mistakes and incidents that happen at the event every year, as Avery had no idea himself due to his limited experience. It set BASE jumpers up to repeat the well-known common mistakes, as seen in the following days of jumping.

Return Of A Record Number Of Tower Strikes And Other Incidents

Expelled From Sibu BASE Jump And The Decay Of The Event

After I had worked hard to promote the town of Sibu for 10 years as the most welcoming and friendly place I had experienced in Malaysia, with the most intelligent leaders, Sibu Resident Charles Siaw requested that I not return to Sibu. Under the new Sibu Resident, it was no longer a welcoming place, and it seemed to no longer have intelligent leaders.

The Sibu Residents’ poor decision-making turned out to be very detrimental to the Sibu event for the second year in a row. Avery first doubled the entry fees for Sibu BASE Jump, driving regular participants away. But then the situation in Malaysia changed for Avery. KL Tower managers decided that they were not going to use outside help anymore, and would just use novice Malaysians to organise their BASE events in future. They gave Avery an offer that was not financially worthwhile for him, so he pulled out of both the KL Tower event and the Sibu event. It was ironic that Avery let the Sibu Resident down, after the Resident had disrespected everyone to strangely support Avery’s and KL Tower manager’s deviousness.

The last thing Avery did was recommend to KL Tower managers and to the Sibu Resident that novice Malaysian BASE jumper Aziz Ahmad take over events. I do not think Avery had a real understanding of the extent of the continued negligence and poor decision-making of Aziz over the years that had been a significant factor in many incidents and other building events being shut down. It was guaranteed that a fatality would occur within two years of Aziz, or any other novice Malaysian BASE jumper for that matter, taking over organising BASE jumping events. I had seen it tragically unfold before, with it not taking too long for the naïve, complacent, and carefree attitudes to propagate to all at BASE jumping events. The majority of my efforts in organising all past events was trying to contain Aziz’s negligence and stop him from getting people seriously injured or killed. Avery, KL Tower managers, and the Sibu Resident all had no understanding that by promoting the negligence of Aziz they were literally demanding another BASE jumping fatality to happen in Malaysia. I tried to educate the Sibu Resident about the expected results, but he remained in very strong denial with a great level of naivety in his thought process and beliefs.

Avery Not Willing To Divulge Who Requested The Ban

I run into Avery several months after his KL tower event and had the opportunity to query him about who actually ordered the banning of Sibu BASE jumpers. He declined to give any names, citing that he is conditioned with his prison code of conduct never to rat on anyone. It is unknown if he was protecting KL Tower management or himself. Most likely he was protecting both.

I soon saw that Avery’s prison code of conduct was very selective. A few months later he publicly and viciously outed a BASE jumper who did not conduct themselves in a manner to his liking. One of the minor details he was attacking the BASE jumpers about was them not giving full disclosure of a possible incident and injury. But Avery was happy to try to hide all the incidents at KL Tower.

Later in the year newspaper reports appeared online showing that Avery testified in court against someone he was labelling as a murderer for an act of professional misjudgement. It is uncertain what happened to Avery’s non-ratting policy on this occasion. He was happy to condemn others when it suited him.

Ironically Avery was also guilty of professional misjudgement, which was guaranteed to result in a death when he recommended that Aziz Ahmad take over organising Malaysian BASE jumping events. I had seen the deadly results the last time when novice Malaysians were accelerated into these positions that they were in no way qualified for. I had battled Aziz’s negligence for more than a decade to stop him from getting BASE jumpers seriously injured or killed. Avery gave the green light for the high level of naivety and negligence to continue, with the expected results soon coming to fruition. If Avery was disqualified as he claimed to be, then he would know not to make such recommendations. I did not see him as much different to the people he was testifying as being a murderer.

Watching Avery over a long period of time he seems to contradict himself a lot.

Expected Results Come To Fruition

As expected, when Aziz Ahmad took over organising BASE jumping events, he immediately almost got himself and another beginner BASE jumper killed with a serious canopy collision. This was due to his inexperience and carelessness. With Aziz’s minimal BASE jumping experience, and lacking of the right aptitude, he remained a danger to himself and others.