warned pilots <\/a>of the tightrope hazard through a Federal Aviation Administration system. <\/p>\nBut that system \u2014 the FAA Notice to Airmen or NOTAM \u2014 \u201cis broken and has been for a long while,\u201d one aviator close to the tragedy told thousands of slackline enthusiasts this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like had there been an open channel between slackliners and local pilots there may have been a chance four people would still be alive,\u201d wrote DJ Vegh, a manager of Pegasus Airpark, where the helicopter took off before the fatal crash. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe pilot was a neighbor and a friend,\u201d Vegh wrote in a Jan. 6 post to the Facebook group, SlackChat. \u201cPlease help me make this tragic event a catalyst for change that benefits slackliners and pilots and helps my friend and his nieces\u2019 deaths not be for nothing.\u201d <\/p>\n
More unofficial communication is needed, he said, because the FAA\u2019s flight safety warning system buries safety issues like obstacles \u201cwithin hundreds of nearly meaningless\u201d notices. <\/p>\n
The FAA did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. <\/p>\n
The National Transportation Safety Board expects to have a preliminary report detailing the facts of the crash within 30 days of the incident. <\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WUFUY3PODJDQDI2HGJUCM4D3DE.JPEG\")
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An undated image posted to the social media account for Pinal County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Arizona near Telegraph Canyon, south of the town of Superior, where a helicopter crash took the lives of four Oregonians, Jan. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n
Pinal County Sheriff\u2019s Office via X<\/p>\n
Vegh\u2019s post went out to nearly 26,000 members of an online forum for a sport that\u2019s gained popularity on public land over the last decade. Its message resonated with Corbin Kunst of Bend. <\/p>\n
For more than a decade, the 34-year-old has been honing his skills at walking calmly across high-elevation slacklines, known as highlining. Central Oregon\u2019s Smith Rock is an epicenter for the sport globally, he said, with around 30 highline routes. Participants usually work with a team, using specialized equipment to install rigging before walking across webbed ropes while wearing harnesses that catch them if they fall. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe appeal of it is that your body knows how to do it, you know you\u2019re safe, but the mind still kind of tricks you, like, \u2018Oh wait, I\u2019m high up.\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cTo overcome that fear is part of the magic. You can turn that fear into enjoyment.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kunst is also a pilot and operations manager for an experimental aircraft company. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a pilot and I know what it\u2019s like,\u201d he said, \u201cAnd I walk really long lines and I\u2019ve kind of seen the sport get really transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few years ago, a slackline as long as the one likely involved in the Arizona helicopter crash would have been \u201cunfathomable,\u201d Kunst said. <\/p>\n
But as interest in slacklining has grown, and more people install rigging to support longer lines, the potential for collisions with aircraft has increased, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt any given time, somewhere around the world, there\u2019s multiple kilometer-long highlines now, and that\u2019s only going to continue to grow,\u201d Kunst said. <\/p>\n
He agreed with Vegh that the NOTAM system for alerting pilots of danger is \u201cquite broken.\u201d <\/p>\n
When pilots look at the FAA airspace notices before taking off, Kunst said, \u201cthere are so many garbage NOTAMs that there\u2019s hundreds or even thousands of them for a given area, there\u2019s no way you can look at all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kunst said that outside of the NOTAM system, he wasn\u2019t aware of federal regulations governing slacklines and aircraft. He said it\u2019s standard for high-elevation slacklines to run flags and lights alongside the webbing someone actually walks on. He encouraged fellow highliners to be proactive in using flight tracking apps and websites, have radios that can reach aircraft, know the common traffic advisories for an area, \u201cand if you see an aircraft, try and talk to them in real time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are a very safety oriented community,\u201d Kunst said of his fellow highliners, \u201cjust like aviation.\u201d <\/p>\n
After the Arizona crash, people in Vegh\u2019s community were angry with slackliners, the airport manager said in an interview, but he\u2019s focused on opening up communication that could prevent another tragedy.<\/p>\n
Vegh said the FAA should elevate slackline placements to the status of Temporary Flight Restriction, a designation more easily noticed by pilots. <\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s already set up a meeting with the International Slackline Association and is hoping it will lead to more conversations. <\/p>\n
\u201cI need to make sure that these people didn\u2019t die for nothing,\u201d Vegh said. <\/p>\n
The slackline association did not immediately respond to an interview request. <\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/K2GLTVNMOJGXNNJQVVRRU3U7U4.jpg\")
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FILE – A slackliner on a tightrope in Istanbul, Turkey in 2024. The little-known extreme sport, also called highlining, has grown in popularity, including in the U.S. On Jan. 2, 2026, four Oregonians died after the helicopter they were in likely collided with a slackline strung across a canyon in Arizona, according to local authorities. The NTSB is investigating.<\/p>\n
Emrah Gurel \/ AP<\/p>\n
The federal investigation to officially determine the cause of the Arizona crash could take a year or more.<\/p>\n
\u201cNTSB does not determine or speculate on the cause of an accident during the on-scene phase of the investigation,\u201d according to a statement from the agency. <\/p>\n
OPB\u2019s Antonio Sierra contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – A French slackliner balances on a 230-foot slackline in Paris in 2021. The little-known extreme sport,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":498932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,224094,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-498931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-public-safety-transportation","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115853926665054824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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