Yonatan Ben Moshe Tarango, 45, has been identified as the Israeli killed in a parachuting accident on the Mont Blanc mountain in northern Italy.
Last night, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that an Israeli man was killed in a sports accident in northern Italy but did not release his name.
Tarango has lived in Spain for the last few years. The family requested that he be buried there.
Here's what happened:
On Thursday, he began to climb the mountain with a friend, a Spanish citizen who has yet to be identified. According to initial reports, the two reached a height of 2,561 meters at around 7 a.m., with the goal of reaching the height of 3,251 meters and jumping off via wingsuit flying.
The suit is meant to be opened right before landing.
Rescue services worked for an hour to reach him. Once they did, they were forced to immediately call his death.
It is still unclear whether the two jumped from the 2,561-meter point or from somewhere else on the mountain.
"It wasn't easy to reach him because he fell into the water."
Italian Rescue Services member
"It wasn't easy to reach him because he fell into the water," a rescue services member told Walla. Local police have opened an investigation and are in contact with the Israeli Embassy in Italy.
Tarango was a hiker and mountain-climbing instructor who had written a book on the subject and was known in the field.
The ministry said on Thursday that it is in touch with the family, extended its condolences and was in the process of retrieving the body for burial in Israel. The family has since requested the body be buried in Spain.
Mont Blanc has not seen a parachuting accident since 2016, when a string of deaths led the mayor of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, the French resort area near the mountain, to outlaw leisure in the area after a young hiker lost his life, There are no flight restrictions on the Italian side of the mountain.