My greatest failure - Lotte Tower

My plan for lotte tower was the freebase it: to climb to the top, jump off and land in a tennis court in the Jamsil area before adopting a disguise and escaping the country back to the UK. The seed was planted back in November 2022 when my best friend and I decided to do a one month trip travelling around Korea. We spent the first week in Seoul where I conducted most of my reconnaissance on Lotte tower, I saw that my goal was totally feasible.

I spent 8 months preparing for the stunt where with help I designed a parachute from scratch, which was ultra-light + appropriate to climb with.

Likewise, I spent months crunching numbers to assess what landing areas, climbing techniques and wind speeds would have validity for the project.

I managed to adopt a sponsor called RIOT labs, a vaping company based in the UK  to help fund the projects costs. The extent of my preparation would not of been possible without the help of RIOT.

I spent over 6 months sleeping in my car under electricity pylons and cranes within the UK, I would climb and jump off them over x4 times consequently as one of my many forms of training.

I was well prepared and well equipped, but unfortunately the project did not go the way I intended.

Here is the story of my attempt at a freebase of Lotte Tower:

I woke up at 2:30am at one of the local Jamsil motels. I was wide awake, logging only 2 hours sleep, not too abnormal the night before a big stunt. I had a coffee, stretched off and left my hotel to begin walking towards the building. As I walked down the  quiet street in the dark I immediately noticed that the humidity levels were unusually high.  This is not too uncommon amongst Asian countries, but certainly new information to me, I was concerned that it could potentially create condensation on the building.

I scheduled myself to begin the ascent at sunrise, so I found a space on a pathway by a lake near to Lotte Tower, I got my heart rate up by doing  push-ups, star jumps and pull ups to help get the blood circulating around my body. The sun was now beginning to rise, this was my signal to put my parachute on. As I clambering  into my harness I  felt that I was noticeably dripping with sweat, I didn’t  think much of it and brushed it all aside.

Once I have my parachute on… I wait on the road next to the building, assessing the perfect time to start. Once the area was clear of people… I crossed the road and began my ascent.

Based off the perceptions I had of the building I was right to have the level of confidence I had in preparation, but my perceptions were partially wrong. Within the first 10mins I noticed that the climb was far more strenuous then I imagined. I took frequent breaks to conserve energy and established a suitable rhythm. The pace was slower than I had anticipated, but it was consistent and moving, so I sat into the ride and let it flow.  

The higher I ascended the building the more narrow the holds became, this was not new information, I had established this on my recces back in November. The narrowing of the holds inevitably made the climbing more strenuous and limited my ability to rest. The  physicality of the climb also became enhanced by the fact that I was carrying a parachute, which not only added extra weight but also restricted the movement in my hips. To add to this the humidity was sucking the energy out of me.

Due to my current state, my pace of climbing had slowed drastically to accommodate for these negative variables. I could see the top where inevitably I would jump from and amongst the suffering I had totally conviction that I would reach it.

Within around 2 hours of climbing I was spotted  by a resident of the Signel residential complex of Lotte Tower. I was so locked into the rhythm of my climbing that I didn’t even notice those who saw me from inside their bedrooms. Upon that, the sirens from around Seoul progressively got louder and louder as all of the emergency services began to descend on me.

I turned my pounding techno music louder to drown out any distractions, as by now there were helicopters, police and special response units all within the building.

My pace was still slow and inevitably this was my demise. The authorities launched a window cradle machine which blocked my ascent from continuing. Simply, I was just  too slow to get passed it and I was also in a position whereby I could not climb around it due to the holds been too far apart. I reached the 73rd floor, two floors below Alain Robert ( The French Spiderman) of whom I could imagine encounted the same problems with the Korean security response units.

Although continuing my ascent was now impossible, I still had my parachute and potentially I could still jump and land within one of my contingency landing areas.

However, the way my feet where positioned on the building at my current state, it seemed incredibly dangerous to jump from there. For me to get enough clearance from the building + stable body position… I would need to find a more appropriate point to jump from- the window cradle machine seemed to be that option.

I was taken onto the cradle machine from a hatch on the floor of the machine, and as I got onto it- it swayed around with my added weight. Immediately, I mounted the barricade of it and tried to jump off. The two security grabbed my harnesses, prohibiting me from jumping.

I came down, waited a moment and tried again: this time my bridle ( a chord attaching pilot chute, to main parachute) got wrapped around the leg of the woman as things started to become very messy very quickly. The woman started to cry as she must of thought I was trying to commit suicide, everything had become too dangerous at that moment to do the jump, I submitted to the process and was taken into the building.

upon entering the building I was frisked and investigated by all the confused and curious Koreans. I felt like an alien in an unknown world, they must of thought of me on these terms as well. Handcuffs were put on me and I was escorted out of the building and driven to the local police station (Seoul Songpa Police Station.)

I was taken to the cells where I was held for approximately three days. Sleep deprived, depleted and dehydrated… I lay on the jail floor feeling defeated. Over the course of the 3 days I was taken in and out of meticulously detailed police interviews where I was interrogated intensively about my actions.

Overall, I was absolutely devastated that I did not achieve what I set out to achieve.

Once released from Jail, I was left in legal limbo,  homeless in Seoul awaiting the verdict from my court case.

I was forced to pay a 5 million fine for charges of obstruction of business and narrowly avoided a 4 month prison sentence.

Willingly, I ended up staying for 6 months in Korea as spontaneously my Greatest Adventure of my life unfolded in front of me.

Written by,

George King

The Shardclimber

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