A weekend BASE jumping accident in a remote Utah canyon has claimed the lives of two people, including Andy Lewis, the daredevil athlete whose gravity-defying slackline performance alongside Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show brought him fleeting global fame. Authorities in Grand County confirmed that Lewis, 37, died during a tandem jump at Mineral Bottom on Sunday. The identity of the second victim has not been released, but the incident has sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community of extreme sports enthusiasts who revered Lewis as a pioneer.

Lewis was a central figure in the high-risk world of BASE jumping — an acronym for Building, Antenna, Span, Earth — which involves parachuting from fixed objects at altitudes far lower than typical skydiving. He was equally celebrated for his mastery of slacklining and tricklining, disciplines that fuse high-wire balance with acrobatic flips and spins, often performed at vertiginous heights. In 2013, he set a record by walking a highline suspended 480 feet above Las Vegas. Yet it was his 2012 Super Bowl appearance, backflipping across a line stretched over the stage as Madonna performed, that transformed him from a niche athlete into a momentary household name.

Emergency crews were dispatched to the Mineral Bottom area, a remote stretch along the Green River popular with BASE jumpers. Lewis had posted an Instagram video earlier that day showing a test flip off a cliff, captioned with thanks for keeping him in frame. The post has since become a digital memorial, drawing tributes from across the global extreme sports community. A Moab resident described Lewis as “a very big personality” known throughout the adventure hub.

Viewed from North America, coverage has focused on Lewis’s record-setting feats and the inherent dangers of BASE jumping, a sport that has seen multiple fatalities in Utah’s canyonlands. British reports similarly emphasised the technical perils of low-altitude parachuting. In Latin America, however, the story resonated primarily through the prism of his Super Bowl performance; Brazilian and Argentine outlets led with his role in Madonna’s halftime show, underscoring how that singular moment of mass exposure defined his public image far beyond the insular world of extreme sports.

The double fatality is likely to intensify scrutiny of BASE jumping, which remains largely unregulated in the United States but is banned in many national parks and urban areas. While proponents argue that advances in equipment and training have improved safety, the sport’s fatality rate remains orders of magnitude higher than that of skydiving. That Lewis died during a tandem jump — a relatively rare practice in BASE jumping — may prompt fresh calls for tighter protocols. Yet for a community that prizes self-reliance and the pursuit of the sublime, the tragedy is also likely to be absorbed as a stark, if familiar, reminder of the costs of living on the edge.