captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> they threatened to hang me. they threatened to pull out my fingernails. they said i'd never see the light of day. >> pelley: it has been nearly a year since alan gross became the lynchpin for the diplomatic breakthrough with cuba. but why was he a prisoner there, and what were those years like? >> i wasn't a spy. >> pelley: this is the first interview with the last prisoner from the cold war. >> this is absolutely ridiculous. "cuba, you want to put your finger into the u.s. government's eye, go ahead but leave me out of it." >> whitaker: five years ago, when arizona needed drugs to execute an inmate named jeffrey landrigan, it purchased them illegally from a supplier

operating out of this driving school in london. >> it's my understanding that there was a paperwork issue. the proper forms weren't filled out. >> whitaker: was it used in the execution of mr. landrigan? >> yes. >> whitaker: this office, the state of arizona, knew or should have known that it was illegal to import these drugs? >> bill, i was not the attorney general when that happened. >> whitaker: yeah, but this... >> and i don't want to use that as an excuse, because i think there's a broader... >> whitaker: but if this office is... this is the top legal office. >> right. >> okay, you good? >> yeah. >> okay. three, two, one, go! >> cooper: j.t. launches off the summit. champion speed rider valentin delluc quickly follows, videotaping for us with a camera on his helmet. the ride of a lifetime has begun. you're standing there on the top of the mountain. what goes through your mind? >> there's two mindsets, you know? there's the... there's the evel knievel, which is kind of kamikaze. and then, there's the james bond. >> cooper: which one are you? >> i'm bond.

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>> pelley: the new opening to cuba would not have happened without an old-fashioned swap. cuban spies were being held in u.s. prisons, and the cubans were holding an american named alan gross. gross was a u.s. government contractor who was setting up internet connections in cuba. but the cuban government said he was a spy. it has been nearly a year since gross became the lynchpin for the diplomatic breakthrough. but why was he there? and what were his years in prison like? this is the first interview with the last prisoner of the cold war. >> alan gross: they threatened to hang me. they threatened to pull out my fingernails. they said i'd never see the light of day. i had to do three things in

order to survive, three things every day. i thought about my family that survived the holocaust. i exercised religiously every day. and i found something every day to laugh at. >> pelley: did you think, in those early days, "boy, the u.s. government's going to get me out of here in the next week or so"? >> gross: oh, i absolutely did for the first two weeks. and then i said to myself, "where the hell are they? where are they?" i figured... i didn't have any idea i'd be there for five years. i knew i was in trouble. i knew i was in trouble. >> pelley: alan gross was attracted to trouble. he's 66, a native of maryland, an electronics specialist who spent 20 years making the rounds of war and disaster, setting up communications for relief agencies.

>> gross: and that's why we say when we... when we would connect... when we'd align the antenna and connect to the satellite, we'd be "lighting the candle." we'd light her up. and we did that in a lot of places. >> pelley: in 2008, the place was cuba. gross was hired by the u.s. agency for international development. u.s.a.i.d. is america's charity, delivering aid all around the world. but in cuba, its mission was different. u.s.a.i.d. asked gross to set up independent internet connections for the jewish community. only 5% of cubans were online. but bypassing government censorship was illegal. still, gross put together an equipment list that would do just that. the key was a device called a bgan satellite modem that made a direct connection to a satellite. on his first trip to havana, he put a piece of tape over the "hughes 9201" model number and

walked his equipment through the airport. so, once cuban customs had cleared your equipment through on that very first trip, you concluded what from that? >> gross: that bringing equipment into cuba wasn't that difficult. they had every opportunity to stop me from bringing that equipment in. they knew what that equipment was, and if they didn't, you know, shame on them. >> pelley: in the spring of 2009, he set up two systems at synagogues. but the people he was helping warned him about getting caught. gross wrote to his supervisors that the project was "playing with fire." it was on his third trip that he spotted trouble. >> gross: i saw a van rolling down the street. and a gentleman was walking next to it with a whip antenna, and it looked like a voltage meter,

and essentially he was checking for radio transmissions. and he rolled right by the synagogue. >> pelley: after that, gross proposed to u.s.a.i.d. that he add sophisticated equipment that could mask the bgan location. he wrote, "discovery of bgan usage would be catastrophic." you recognized the danger, at that point. why did you go back two more times? >> gross: well, the danger didn't seem so dangerous because i came home. and i still had a contract to fulfill. >> pelley: look, you keep saying you had a contract to fulfill. that's not all that's going on here. >> gross: no, that's it. >> pelley: you believed in the work. >> gross: i do believe that access to information is a right for everyone, but i have never interfered or participated in any kind of political activity overseas. >> pelley: you were bringing free speech to an oppressed

people under the nose of a government that did not want that to happen. >> gross: three billion people every day log on to the internet around the world. how could that be circumventing the government? now, it might sound a little bit naive. so i'm naive. >> pelley: mr. gross, you can tell me that you... >> gross: you can call me alan. >> pelley: alan, you can tell me that you believed in what you were doing, but you can't tell me you didn't know what you were doing. >> gross: i knew exactly what i was doing. i was setting up internet connectivity for the jewish community in cuba. it was very simple-- get them connected. that was it. >> pelley: but it ceased to be simple on his fifth trip when four men pulled him out of his havana hotel. he was driven to a police station where a man who seemed to be a doctor ordered him to take a pill he said was a sedative. >> gross: so i took the pill. he gave me a juice box, and as i'm drinking the juice box, swallowing the pill, he says,

"that's it, that's right, drink, drink." and i thought i was in an old humphrey bogart movie. and they took me to a hospital, they took my clothes, they gave me these striped pajamas. >> pelley: you spent the night where? >> gross: i spent the first night and most of the next five years at the carlos finlay military hospital. >> pelley: here in havana, gross was held in a room 18 feet by 18 with two other prisoners. every day, for the first year, he was interrogated. >> gross: it was terrible. there was... it was a time of sensory deprivation for me, especially that first year. the place was infested with ants and roaches. i didn't have any meat, really, for five years. >> pelley: you lost 100 pounds. >> gross: actually, i lost 110 pounds. >> pelley: this is gross with his lawyer during his imprisonment. he lost five teeth to lack of nutrition. and yet, he says he forced himself to walk 10,000 steps a

day in circles. it turned out his legal case was on the same path. it was more than a year before he went to trial for subverting the government. >> judy gross: i call it the kangaroo court. >> pelley: his wife judy was in the court. >> judy gross: the prosecutor went on for over an hour, talking about the united states. never mentioned alan's name. he started, i think, with the eisenhower administration. >> pelley: the united states was on trial and alan was uncle sam. >> gross: absolutely. absolutely. >> pelley: the sentence-- 15 years. >> judy gross: my heart sunk. then i thought, you know, we have to start moving furiously and do everything we can. >> pelley: judy gross held a rally every tuesday outside cuba's unofficial embassy in washington, and she protested at the white house. the worst thing that could happen would be for people to forget his name. >> judy gross: absolutely. absolutely.

>> pelley: and you made sure that didn't happen. >> judy gross: i was afraid that the government had already forgotten his name. >> pelley: the government that sent alan gross on his mission seemed helpless. years stretched on. judy gross lost their home, unable to make the mortgage. there was a time in this imprisonment that you stopped eating. >> gross: i decided that i would go on a hunger strike, to protest both governments' lack of leadership and lack of effort to resolve this situation. it was ridiculous. i wasn't a spy. i wasn't a smuggler. i wasn't a criminal. this is absolutely ridiculous! "cuba, you want to put your finger in the u.s. government's eye? go ahead, but leave me out of it. u.s. government, you want to send people to countries where we have no diplomatic relations and run cockamamie programs? go ahead, but leave me out of it!

and get me the hell out of here!" >> pelley: one person in washington who felt the same way was senator patrick leahy of vermont. leahy thought u.s.a.i.d. had bungled a project more suited to the cia, and he had a word for it. why do you say that the u.s.a.i.d. program was "stupid"? >> patrick leahy: well, they're not a spy agency, so they shouldn't do things that make it look like that. and i think it was a disservice to all the men and women who work so well for our country with u.s.a.i.d. around the world. >> pelley: in 2010, leahy asked his top aide, tim rieser, to figure out what cuba wanted for alan gross. >> tim rieser: they were fed up with the u.s.a.i.d. program. i think they also wanted a bargaining chip. they wanted their prisoners back and they wanted to make a point. >> pelley: their prisoners were celebrated in havana as the "cuban five"-- intelligence

agents sentenced to long terms in u.s. prisons for espionage. how hard was it for the united states to give up these five prisoners? >> rieser: i can tell you that when senator leahy first raised this, the response was "it was a non-starter." >> pelley: "impossible." >> rieser: "we're not... we're not doing anything like that." so our response was, "well, then alan gross is going to die in cuba." >> pelley: senator leahy made two trips to cuba. and in 2013, he and his wife marcelle met adriana perez, the wife of one of the five cubans in u.s. prison. >> leahy: she said to marcelle, "i love my husband the way you love your husband. i may never see him out of prison. i want to have his baby. will you help us?" >> rieser: we talked about it, and if there's something that we can do that the cubans care about that isn't... doesn't cost us anything, why not do it? i talked to the bureau of

prisons. i talked to the state department. it became clear that there was only one option, and that was artificial insemination. >> pelley: so rieser arranged for a special delivery from the u.s. prison to a clinic in panama. adriana perez became pregnant, and a new day in cuban relations was born. >> rieser: i think that was reflected in the conversations that the cubans were having with people in the administration, also. they each remarked that the tone had changed, the... just the way they talked to each other was better. >> pelley: secret talks, of a different tone, went on for months. gross had no idea. he told his family he would not live another year in prison. then came a rare phone call with his wife. >> gross: and she said, "alan, we're never going to talk like this again. you get it?" ( laughs ) i got it. i got it. i got it. >> pelley: she couldn't say it in the clear on the phone.

>> gross: no. but she was very clear in her wording, in her verbiage, that i was coming home. >> pelley: the next day-- december 17, 2014-- two planes landed in havana, one with the cuban prisoners, the other with senator leahy and judy gross. later that morning, president obama announced the trade, which also included an unnamed cuban who had worked for u.s. intelligence. diplomatic relations were reestablished after more than half a century. en route to america, alan gross got a call from the president. >> barack obama: and after years in prison, we are overjoyed that alan gross is back where he belongs. welcome home, alan. we're glad you're here. ( applause ) >> pelley: and weeks later, a shout-out at the state of the union address. >> gross: i've worked in 54 countries around the world. every time my plane would touch down on u.s. soil, i was grateful to be home, grateful.

and that night, in particular, i was humbled. >> pelley: you know, i'm curious. what did you say to your captors on leaving? >> gross: hasta la vista, baby. >> pelley: seriously. >> gross: seriously. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by lincoln financial. calling all chief life officers. >> glor: good evening. 150 world leaders in paris for a klimt summit running tomorrow through december 11th. online shoppers are expected to spend a record $3 billion tomorrow on cyber monday. and treasurer janet yellen will discuss the nation's economic outlook thursday on capitol hill. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.

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>> whitaker: in july of last year, joseph wood was strapped to a gurney in arizona's death chamber. his execution, by lethal injection with a new cocktail of drugs, was supposed to take about ten minutes. it took almost two hours, the longest execution in u.s. history. when lethal injections were introduced in 1977, they were supposed to be a more humane form of capital punishment. instead, the process has become a messy testing ground for unproven toxic drugs. at the heart of the problem-- pharmaceutical companies have banned the use of their drugs for capital punishment, partly under pressure from death penalty opponents. without access to the lethal agents they have used for decades, the states are turning to new, untried drugs. and that's creating an execution crisis in america, making it harder and harder to ensure that, when a state decides to

end a life, things don't go horribly awry, as they did in the execution of joseph wood. arizona is one of 31 states to employ capital punishment. cameras aren't allowed here, but this department of corrections video takes us inside death row, where more than 100 inmates are awaiting execution by lethal injection. on july 23, 2014, it was joseph wood's turn. wood had been convicted of murdering his former girlfriend and her father. at 1:52 p.m., arizona executioners began pumping an experimental combination of drugs into wood's veins. they had never before used these drugs for execution, but they expected wood to die within minutes. among the witnesses that day were deacon ed schaeffer, wood's attorney, dale baich, and reporter michael kiefer. >> michael kiefer: it seemed to go as normal. they put in the... the catheters.

they announced that they would... were administering the drug. and he closed his eyes and went to sleep. >> dale baich: and about 11 minutes in, i noticed his lip quiver. and a minute later, he gasped. a few seconds later, he did it again, and then again and again and again. >> ed schaeffer: it was loud. it wasn't just, you know, some nice, peaceful sleeping sound. >> whitaker: were you thinking at this point, "something's gone wrong"? >> kiefer: everybody was thinking something went wrong. you could see the looks on the faces of the people from the department of corrections, who were... who were standing along the side. you know, they were looking at each other nervously. >> whitaker: you tried to have the execution stopped? >> baich: while joe wood was on the table gasping and gulping, we were arguing to a federal judge that he should stop the execution. >> whitaker: on what grounds? >> baich: that it wasn't working.

>> schaeffer: i actually said about four rosaries, four complete rosaries, and there's five decades to each rosary. and each one can take anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. >> whitaker: and that told you that this was going on for a very long time? >> schaeffer: hour and 58 minutes. >> kiefer: that's a long time to be sitting there, watching somebody die. >> whitaker: before the federal judge could rule, joseph wood was dead. it was supposed to take just one dose of the drugs to kill him. prison logs show, before it was over, executioners had injected wood 15 times with the new cocktail of drugs. >> baich: someone made the decision to inject 14 additional doses of that drug into mr. wood. that's not something that has ever been done before. so, they were making it up as they went along. >> whitaker: in several rulings, the supreme court has reaffirmed

the eighth amendment-- punishment must not be cruel and unusual. joseph wood's lingering death set off alarms across the country and prompted an independent investigation in arizona. was joseph wood's execution botched? >> mark brnovich: well, bill, i think "botched" is a very inflammatory word. >> whitaker: arizona attorney general mark brnovich told us he sees nothing wrong in the way wood's execution was carried out. it took almost two hours. that's the longest execution in u.s. history. >> brnovich: at the end of the day, though, the independent report, the medical examiner, all concluded that mr. wood was sedated the entire time, was unresponsive to stimuli, and he was feeling no pain whatsoever. >> whitaker: but how do you know that? >> brnovich: well, obviously, at... at the end of the day... >> whitaker: were there sensors? was anybody taking brain... you know, how do you know he wasn't feeling pain? >> brnovich: well, ultimately, you can't know, because the person's dead. >> whitaker: so if two hours isn't too long, what is? three hours? would that cause alarm?

four hours? >> brnovich: i think two hours, three hours, four hours-- when someone's on the death gurney and they're unconscious, i don't think they're worried about the time. in this instance, it happened to take longer, but that does not mean that it was botched. >> whitaker: what would you call it? >> brnovich: i would call it that you had somebody who is a heinous killer that murdered people in cold blood, and eventually received justice. >> whitaker: there's no dispute of joseph wood's guilt. in august of 1989, wood, a 31- year-old vet addicted to methamphetamines, walked into this auto body shop in tucson, arizona, shot and killed his former girlfriend, debra dietz, and her father, eugene dietz, in cold blood in broad daylight. richard and jeannie brown remember that day well. you actually saw joe wood kill your... >> richard brown: ...sister-in- law. she's saying "no, joe, don't do it, don't do it," and he shot her anyways. it was one of the worst days of my life. in 40 seconds, eugene dietz and deborah dietz were dead.

>> jeannie brown: and my mom looked at me and she walked up and gave me a hug, and she said "your dad and sister were just killed." >> whitaker: you witnessed his execution? >> richard brown: yes. >> whitaker: what was that day like for you? >> richard brown: that day was one of the best days of my life, because he finally got it. >> jeannie brown: everybody can say he went inhumanely, it was a horrible death. i wonder if we were all sitting in the same room and if we all saw the same thing, because he went peacefully. and my... i'm sure my dad and my sister did not go peacefully. >> whitaker: this is a murderer. he committed a heinous crime. why worry about his last two hours on earth? >> baich: we're not medical doctors. we don't know whether joe wood experienced pain. but what we do know is that, under the constitution, there cannot be cruel and unusual

punishment, and there cannot be a lingering death. i witnessed other executions by lethal injection and i had never seen anything like that. >> whitaker: lethal injections were supposed to be a civilized step up from the brutality of electrocutions and the spectacle of public hangings. former president ronald reagan described execution by lethal injection as "just like falling asleep." >> alex kozinski: i just think that the whole idea of using drugs is foolish. >> whitaker: alex kozinski is a judge on the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit, which covers the west, including arizona, where joseph wood was executed. kozinski was appointed to the bench by president reagan and is one of the most prominent conservative judges in the country. he is in favor of the death penalty, but is opposed to lethal injection. >> kozinski: the state of arizona and other states want to make this look like it's benign,

want to make it look like "oh, it's just a medical procedure." they ought to just face the idea that this is cruel and this is violent, and they ought to use some method that reflects that. >> whitaker: well, we used to do all kinds of things to kill people. we used to have the electric chair. we used to have the gas chamber. we used to hang people, even publicly. >> kozinski: many people were executed by electric chair, but then it was switched away from that because it was thought to be something that caused pain. >> whitaker: so, that's why most states moved to lethal injection. >> kozinski: and as a result, those people who strongly opposed the death penalty moved to stop the flow of drugs that are available for execution, so now, states have to scramble for ever-more-exotic drugs to try to carry out the death penalty. >> whitaker: pharmaceutical companies also grew alarmed that drugs developed to heal were being used to kill, and they

refused to sell them for use in executions. the u.s. government now prohibits the import of the drugs. we found 15 states have begun to improvise their own lethal concoctions. the result-- a number of bungled executions. last year, in ohio, convicted murderer dennis mcguire gasped and convulsed on the gurney for 25 minutes before dying. in oklahoma, clayton lockett, convicted of rape and murder, was administered an untested combination of drugs. he struggled violently, groaned and writhed. a witness later said it was like watching a person being tortured to death. prison officials moved to stop the execution, but lockett would die of a heart attack 43 minutes after the drugs first entered his veins. lockett's execution prompted president barack obama to call for a wide-ranging federal review of executions. >> barack obama: what happened in oklahoma is deeply troubling. in the application of the death penalty in this country, we have

seen significant problems. >> whitaker: most states have laws making lethal injection the only option for executions. with the drugs now unavailable, we found six states have skirted federal law and turned to black market dealers to get their hands on them. five years ago, when arizona needed drugs to execute an inmate named jeffrey landrigan, it purchased them illegally from a supplier operating out of this driving school in london. on customs forms obtained by "60 minutes," the state claimed the imported drugs were for animal use. we asked the current attorney general, mark brnovich, if those drugs were used for the landrigan execution. the importing of the drug that you were trying to use for his execution was illegal. it's against u.s. law for that drug to be imported. >> brnovich: it's my understanding that there was a paperwork issue. the proper forms weren't filled out. >> whitaker: was it used in the execution of mr. landrigan?

>> brnovich: yes. >> whitaker: this office, the state of arizona, knew or should have known that it was illegal to import these drugs? >> brnovich: bill, i was not the attorney general when that happened. >> whitaker: yeah, but this... >> brnovich: and i don't want to use that as an excuse, because i think there's a broader... >> whitaker: but if this office is... this is the top legal office. >> brnovich: right. and all i can assure you is that, as long as i'm attorney general, we will follow all state and federal regulations and all state and federal laws when it comes to obtaining and using the drugs in the executions here in arizona. >> whitaker: after our interview, newly released documents revealed the arizona department of corrections once again purchased banned execution drugs abroad. federal authorities seized the illegal imports. arizona now is trying to get them back. >> brnovich: we execute individuals not because we want to or we get some sort a bloodlust out if it. we do it because we feel like we have to, and we will do everything we can to make sure that they're killed in the most efficient manner possible. >> whitaker: the death penalty

in arizona has been blocked by a lawsuit since the problems with joseph wood's execution. the state is fighting in court to resume capital punishment by lethal injection. >> kozinski: i would eliminate the entire controversy. i would use a bullet or a series of bullets. they're fast, they're effective. nobody ever survives. >> whitaker: go back to the firing squad? >> kozinski: make it look like an execution. mutilate the body. and this would express the sense of that's what you're doing, that we're actually committing violence on another human being. >> whitaker: i read that you have even thought the guillotine might be a good way to execute. >> kozinski: oh, yes. >> whitaker: really? >> kozinski: the guillotine works. never fails. it's quick. it's effective. >> whitaker: you do know what that sounds like, hearing a judge sort of be an advocate for the guillotine? >> kozinski: tell me. >> whitaker: barbaric.

>> kozinski: the death penalty is barbaric. and i think we, as a society, need to come face to face with that. if we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it. >> this cbs sports update is brtd to you by ford. i'm james brown with scores from the nfl today. k.c. with its fifth straight the hold on the a wild card spot. oakland ends its three-game skid and keeps its playoff hopes alive. houston and indy both win to remain tied atop the a.f.c. south. washington tops new york and moves into a first-place tie with the giants in the n.f.c. east. for more sports news and information, go to cbssports.com. four hundred thirty-four thousand,

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>> cooper: the eiger in the swiss alps is one of the most forbidding mountains in the world. locals call it "the ogre." and for more than a century, this monster of a mountain has attracted thrill-seekers eager to risk their lives on its nearly vertical slopes. more than 60 climbers have frozen or fallen to their deaths. now, a new breed of daredevil is taking on the eiger, not by climbing up the mountain, but by plunging down it. when we heard that, after years of planning, a new kind of descent was about to be attempted, we went to switzerland to see firsthand something no one had ever tried before. at 13,000 feet, the icy summit of the eiger is too steep and rocky to simply ski down... >> j.t. holmes: you ready? >> cooper: ...so j.t. holmes is training in three extreme sports to rocket down more of the eiger than anyone ever has.

right now, he is practicing one of those sports, speed riding, on a nearby mountain slope with his friend and cameraman valentin delluc. to speed ride, j.t. is using skis, but he's also attached to a glider-like parachute called a speed wing. it allows him to soar over rocks and ledges impossible to ski. >> holmes: you're capable of transitioning in and out of flight at will. >> cooper: so you're both skiing, and then you're flying... and then you're skiing a little bit more. >> holmes: exactly. >> cooper: but speed riding will only take j.t. so far down the eiger. he'll also ski off a cliff, and then free fall the rest of the way, all in one long, non-stop, breathtaking ride. >> holmes: three sports, one run. and they're my three favorite sports, so... >> cooper: these are the three things you love? >> holmes: yeah. these are three of the things that i love. >> cooper: j.t. needs perfect

conditions for this dangerous descent, and so far, he hasn't been lucky. weather on the eiger is unpredictable. fierce winds whip the slopes and change direction dramatically. j.t. checks the eiger every day to see if he can finally head to the summit. the past two years, he's had to cancel plans because wind blew the snow off the top of the mountain. today, the conditions are not right? >> holmes: well, yeah, today you can't even see the top of the eiger. so, first of all, you couldn't land a helicopter up there. >> cooper: how long have you been planning this? >> holmes: you know, the first kind of thoughts of it were upwards of six years ago, but really focused on it for three. >> cooper: why has it taken so long? >> holmes: you'd be putting your life, you know, in unnecessary risk. so i need the right day. >> cooper: j.t. is well aware of the risk. he started out as a professional skier-- the steeper the slope, the better. >> j.t. holmes: ready, set, go! >> cooper: now, at 35, he makes

a living through endorsements and filming his remarkable feats. when we first met him six years ago in norway, he and his daredevil friends were pioneering the use of wingsuits, jumping off mountains and flying at more than 100 miles an hour. but in the last several years, a number of j.t.'s friends and acquaintances have died in wingsuit accidents. eiliv ruud, who was flying with j.t. in norway, was killed in 2012 when he struck a cliff and fell 1,000 feet. j.t. won't be wingsuit-flying off the eiger. the most dangerous part of his descent will be after he finishes speed riding when he tries to jettison his skis and free fall down the rest of the mountain. to practice, he makes base jumps without skis off a tiny slippery piece of rock he calls "the mushroom." >> holmes: i stepped off the helicopter onto the mushroom, and that was fine. i had a good grip. but then i took another step and

there was this really thin ice layer. it feels a little more uneven than i remember it. >> cooper: he's off. he falls for about 20 seconds, accelerating to 110 miles an hour before opening his parachute. he's starting right toward us. parachute is open. it's a white parachute, he's red. that was amazing. how was it? >> holmes: ( laughs ) scary. >> cooper: when j.t. jumps off the cliff on the eiger, he'll have his skis on. properly releasing them is critical. what's the danger if you can't get the skis off? >> holmes: you're at risk of an unstable parachute deployment or a snag. >> cooper: so, the biggest danger is that the ski is going to get tangled up in the parachute. >> holmes: that's the risk. >> cooper: that risk is foremost in his mind because of what happened to his best friend, shane mcconkey. in 2007, j.t. and shane started skiing off mountains, dropping

their skis, and then flying away in wingsuits. it was a dangerous combination they found thrilling. >> shane mcconkey: oh, yeah, another wingsuit ski base. here we go. >> cooper: but on this jump in italy in 2009, shane mcconkey's ski release mechanism jammed. he couldn't get his skis to come off. he crashed into the ground at high speed, and was killed instantly. that's how he died, his skis didn't come off? >> holmes: he couldn't get his skis off, struggled in his wingsuit, and... and crashed. >> cooper: when j.t. is training at the eiger, he wears a t-shirt with a funny picture of shane on it. >> holmes: this eiger descent... >> cooper: without his old friend there to help him, he has turned to new friends. martin schurmann is an experienced swiss mountain guide. >> martin schurmann: it can change very quickly from good conditions to really nasty. >> cooper: it can turn bad very quickly? >> schurmann: oh, yeah. and then, you're in trouble. >> cooper: one wrong step, and you can plunge off... >> schurmann: you're... you're gone.

>> cooper: martin and j.t. are cautious and methodical, making numerous trips up the eiger to plan, in advance, every part of the complex descent, particularly this spot where j.t. will jump, jettison his skis, and begin to free fall. you're standing there on the top of the mountain, what goes through your mind? >> holmes: there's two mindsets, you know? there's the... there's the evel knievel, which is kind of kamikaze, and "who knows how it's going to work out?" and "will you hit the landing ramp or not?" and then, there's the james bond. and bond is composed and dialed, and he uses clever pieces of gear which he developed with "q" to, you know, outwit his opponents and pull off tremendous things, and... >> cooper: which one are you? >> holmes: i'm bond. ( laughs ) >> cooper: after days of waiting, and years of false starts and cancelled attempts, on this visit in april, the weather on the mountain suddenly clears. j.t. decides the time is right. he and his team take a chopper to the eiger summit.

>> holmes: i'm checking for landmarks on the way up and kind of confirming my line, my path of descent. >> cooper: so you already have a path of descent in your mind? >> holmes: it's something that's been memorized. >> cooper: the eiger may be a monster of a mountain, but up close, the summit is shockingly small. here, there is no room for error, no room for the helicopter. it's not big enough for the helicopter to land? >> holmes: no, it... it does what we call a tow-in, where it just puts its nose into the eiger. and it just hovers there. >> cooper: how big is the... the area that you're standing on at the top? >> holmes: the... the top of the eiger is pretty small. it's... there is no flat spot. you know, workable space is... three ping-pong tables. >> cooper: three ping-pong tables? >> holmes: yeah. >> cooper: that's it? >> holmes: something like that, yeah. >> cooper: a mistake here, one wrong step at 13,000 feet could cost them their lives. j.t. and his team work for almost an hour. wearing crampons on their ski

boots, they dig trenches with ice axes so they won't fall down the nearly vertical slope. the surface is jagged ice, not powdery snow, and it can easily rip the speed wings. >> holmes: i don't like how those things grab the lines. >> cooper: they file down the sharp pieces of ice so they won't snag the speed wing lines. but the wind kicks up and they have to quickly reposition them. j.t. decides it's now or never. >> holmes: okay, you're good? >> valentin delluc: yeah. >> holmes: okay, three, two, one. go! >> cooper: j.t. launches off the summit. champion speed rider valentin delluc quickly follows, videotaping for us with a camera on his helmet. the ride of a lifetime has begun. >> holmes: that's when you turn your skis downhill. now, doing that, that's very committing. because, you know, you point your skis down the eiger, you're probably not going to stop till the bottom. >> cooper: one way or the other. >> holmes: one way or the other.

>> cooper: j.t. uses the speed wing for much of the descent, flying over outcroppings of rock and icy slopes too steep to ski. he reaches an open slope on the eiger's western flank and lands. he cuts loose his speed wing so it won't slow him down. now, he relies solely on his skis and skill. >> holmes: it's black diamond skiing. you're in a really cool place where few people have skied. really, what you're going to try to do is just gather as much speed as possible and just propel yourself off the cliff. >> cooper: the cliff he'll ski off is coming up fast. this is the most dangerous part of j.t.'s descent. there is no stopping. he completes a double back flip to stabilize himself, releases his skis, then free falls. his nylon suit is aerodynamically designed, propelling him forward, so he

doesn't crash into any rock ledges. he falls nearly 2,000 feet, finally opening his parachute... >> holmes: whoo-hoo! yeah! yeah, buddy! whoo-hoo! whoa! >> cooper: he drifts safely to the ground, landing more than a mile below the eiger summit. >> holmes: whoa, dude! whoa! oh, my god, that was pretty intense, man. nailed it. >> cooper: nailed it? >> holmes: nailed it. i don't have words to describe how it felt to go and pull that off after so much time. and, you know, it's kind of a twisted style of having fun, but it was really fun. if you're too fast, it's a little just kind of scary. >> cooper: we assumed j.t. would call it a day after making it down the eiger in one piece. but after catching his breath and repacking his equipment, he decides to head back to the

summit and do the whole run down the mountain once again. >> holmes: three, two, one, go! >> cooper: his speed ride off the summit goes perfectly. he flies over trouble spots, and builds up speed as he approaches the cliff edge. but when he tries to release his skis, one of them won't come off. this is what killed his best friend, shane mcconkey. j.t. struggles for several agonizing seconds, then finally manages to drop the ski. it's a close call, but it doesn't seem to stop him from enjoying the rest of the ride. could you give it up? >> holmes: i believe that i could. because i don't feel that i'm-- you know, addicted to this sort of... type of thing, this adrenaline, or this sort of high-risk activity.

>> cooper: you're not an adrenaline junkie, you don't think? >> holmes: absolutely not. i... i prefer "adrenaline enthusiast." ( laughter ) i truly believe that i don't have to do this. and i truly believe that i enjoy doing this and... >> cooper: that's pretty clear. >> holmes: the day will come when i tone it down significantly. >> cooper: but that day is not here yet? >> holmes: it's not today. >> how'd they get those pictures. go to 60minutesovertime.com. plaque psoriasis... ...isn't it time to let the... ...real you shine... ...through? introducing otezla, apremilast. otezla is not an injection, or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. some people who took otezla saw 75% clearer skin after 4 months.

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>> pelley: now, an update on a

story that we called "the future of money." lesley stahl reported how kenya is using a mobile phone-based system that allows people to send and receive cash. pig farmer stephen wainaina waweru brought solar power to his farm, making 40 cents-a-day installments with his phone. many viewers offered to pay stephen's debt. but instead, the solar power company has forgiven what the farmer owed. something else to be thankful for this weekend. i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

you have made a very big mistake, mr. dalton. i can't imagine what you hoped to achieve with this vicious and unwarranted attack but i promise you, we will meet you in equal measure. president ostrov, i can assure you that the united states is just learning of this with the rest of the world. your lies are beneath you. and they are an insult to myself and the russian people. you will pay for this. i am flattered that you think we could organize a cyber attack capable of crippling a city of moscow's power and magnitude. if we had managed to pull that together,