Woman Falls To Her Death In Hang-Gliding Accident, Instructor Arrested

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A B.C. hang-gliding pilot being held in custody after the weekend death of his passenger is alleged to have swallowed a memory card that might have contained a video of the fatal flight Saturday, police say.

A document submitted by the RCMP to British Columbia provincial court recommending charges of obstruction of justice alleges that pilot William Jon Orders “did wilfully attempt to obstruct justice by swallowing a memory card which may contain evidence in the sudden death of Lenami Godinez.”

Orders, 50, was charged with obstructing justice on Monday after 27-year-old Godinez fell 300 metres to her death during a tandem hang-glider flight.

A video record of every flight is part of the experience promised on the website of Vancouver Hang Gliding, the company owned and operated by Orders.
[...]

Police have already seized the hang glider used in the fatal flight, but say they are still looking for a key piece of evidence.

Hollingsworth says more charges could be laid as the investigation progresses.
Tried to hold passenger

Witnesses said Orders tried desperately to hold on to Godinez as she slipped from his grip and plunged 300 metres to her death about 30 seconds after the launch of the tandem flight.

The pair took off from Mount Woodside, a popular gliding spot and considered one of the safest launch sites in the Fraser Valley for winds and for distances, said Warner.

Godinez's boyfriend had bought her the flight as an anniversary gift and was videotaping her takeoff, but stopped recording just before she fell to her death, said Warner.
[...]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...der-pilot.html

Orders, who runs Vancouver Hang Gliding and has 16 years’ experience, was piloting a tandem glider when Godinez started to fall shortly after launch. While Orders struggled to hold onto the young woman, she clutched desperately at the pilot, even grabbing his feet, before she fell.

Her body was found seven hours later in a logged-out clearcut, about 20 metres from one of Orders’ shoes, after an extensive search by police, RCMP Air Services, Emergency Health Services, local pilots and search-and-rescue teams from Chilliwack and Kent-Harrison.

Jason Warner, a spokesman for the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, said the pilot was trained and experienced.

“At this point, it is being looked at as if it was pilot error or equipment error,” said Warner. “This has never happened in Canada before.”

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04...cting-justice/

[penelopejo]

Depending on the size of that memory card, it may hurt coming out the other end....

also, is there a life insurance policy listing him as a beneficiary?

[LeaveMeBe]

I swear, I spent a good minute to a minute and a half trying to think of what the hell he could have swallowed that was evidence and a memory card never crossed my mind. Not sure if that says something about the way my mind works or if it says something about this site, but I'm guessing a bit of both.

That was a great title @Dakota Valkyrie. You got me.

[newstarshipsmell]

Ah, the dangers of "just following orders..."

[kniption]

This shit ain't over yet...

Police say X-rays show memory card still inside hang-gliding pilot

In a bizarre twist to a tragic tale, the hang-glider pilot whose young passenger fell to her death over B.C.’s Fraser Valley has been ordered to remain in custody while a memory card he’s alleged to have swallowed passes through his body.

...

source - http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2420745/

[Dakota Valkyrie]

This shit ain't over yet...

I would hate to be the low man on the "Evidence Recovery Team" totem pole.

[biteme]

So, he shit yet?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Shit happens!

Bail has been granted to a hang-gliding pilot accused of swallowing evidence connected to the tragic death of his tandem passenger last Saturday.

William Jonathan Orders, 50, is charged with obstruction of justice and has been in police custody since the incident.

He appeared in B.C. Provincial Court in Chilliwack Friday for a bail hearing. Orders was released on his own recognizance with a $5,750 deposit.

There is a publication ban on any evidence presented in court during the hearing.
[...]

Orders has been in police custody since shortly after the incident. Police were waiting for the memory card to emerge.

“We are in possession of the evidence we’ve been waiting for,” Upper Fraser Valley RCMP spokeswoman Const. Tracey Wolbeck said outside court Friday. “We have processes in place to extract what is on the card.”
[...]

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Hang...640/story.html

His lawyer confirmed before the appearance that the memory card was out.

Whether any data on the ingested smart card can be salvaged will depend on how badly digestive acids and body salts have corroded the device, British Columbia Institute of Technology forensics expert Dave McKay, co-ordinator for BCIT's forensic science and technology degree program explained.

"The nice thing about the storage cards that were probably used . . . is that they don't have a lot of moving parts, like a memory drive, so there is less likelihood of mechanical destruction that would void recovery of any information from the card itself," said McKay, who also served as a civilian RCMP forensic investigator from 2003 to 2008, specializing in video forensics.

But working against them is the possibility of corrosion.

"On a lot of the cards, the interface of the devices uses little copper strips, so there could be a concern based on the human body, how acidic it is, and how much salt there would be in their system, because that could corrode the card and cause a lot of damage," he said.

Even so, a damaged card could still likely yield some recorded data, he stressed.

"It's not an all-or-nothing thing. The data is stored on individual memory cells, so you could have a few cells that are completely corrupt, but could still have other cells that you could recover information from."

Once the card is "retrieved," MacKay said, the first thing forensic investigators would want to do would be to flush and clean it with distilled water as best they could, then further treat it with a high-concentration alcohol solution, and finally, dry it slowly at low temperature to avoid heat damage. Once the card is dry, they could begin attempting data recovery.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/travel/...451/story.html

[Killroy]

Vancouver, BC, Canada*–*Witnesses watched in horror as a woman plunged 1,000 feet to her death while taking her first hang-gliding lesson.
According to reports, 27-year-old Lenami Godinez-Avila*and her boyfriend David were at*Mount Woodside in the Fraser Valley waiting for their turn to fly in tandem with an instructor on a hang-glider.*The couple was there after David purchased hang-gliding lessons as part of their anniversary*celebrations.
Both got suited up and*Godinez-Avila was paired with Jon Orders, an*instructor*with 16 years experience. She went before David, who was filming the event,*but witnesses say that immediately after taking off they could tell something was not right.
Normally when flying with an*instructor, you are beside them, strapped into a harness that was hooked to the glider. But in this case, Godinez-Avila*was hanging vertically with her feet dangling.*She used her upper body to hold on at first, before getting Orders into a bear hug as he tried to wrap his legs around her.*Unfortunately, she couldn’t hold on.
“I could see her starting to slip down his body … past the waist, down the legs. Finally she got to the feet and tried to hang on and obviously couldn’t hang on for that much longer and let go, tearing off the tandem pilot’s shoes in the process,” said*Nicole McLearn, who witnessed the horrific event.…

This article is from The Dreamin' Demon, the Internet's self-appointed buzzkill.


"Read the full Front Page article..."

[Dakota Valkyrie]

he hang glider pilot whose tandem passenger plunged to her death last month publicly apologized Monday for his “panicked action” of swallowing a memory card containing video of the fatal flight.

William Jonathan Orders also vowed to give up hang gliding.

In a written statement, Orders said he was “sincerely and deeply sorry” for the death of Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27.

“Lenami was someone's daughter and that I find especially difficult to deal with,” he said.

He delivered his statement to two television crews at his lawyer’s office.

“I want to offer my condolences and sympathy for what Lenami’s family and friends must be going through,” he said, rarely looking at the camera directly.
[...]

“I would like to apologize to Lenami’s family, to the police and the public, for my panicked action of swallowing the memory card as I did,” he said, adding, “I disclosed to the police myself … what I had done with the memory card as a result of the overwhelming stress I was under.

“I realize that my actions caused this matter to drag out unnecessarily for Lenami’s family and friends, and for the police, and for that I am deeply regretful.”
[...]

“My intention was to give Lenami an amazing adventure and lots of smiles, but I failed in such a major way,” Orders said. “I will be left with the events constantly going through my mind and that I will have to endure forever.”

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2.../19758681.html

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Pilot error in B.C. hang-gliding death, investigation shows

Multiple distractions prior to takeoff and pilot error contributed to the death of a hang-gliding passenger in B.C.’s Fraser Valley in April, according to an investigation report.

The Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada reported late Wednesday on the results of its investigation into the death of Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27, who was a passenger on a fatal flight with pilot Jon Orders.

“The investigation concluded that the passenger’s harness was not connected to the glider on takeoff. The required 'hang-check' (or any other suitable method of harness/glider connection test) was not performed prior to the pilot committing to takeoff,” the association said.

Godinez-Avila plunged about 300 metres to the ground shortly after takeoff April 28.

The association said its investigation has ruled out any possibility of equipment failure in the tragedy.

Orders and the pilot of another hang-glider that was about to take off with Godinez-Avila’s boyfriend were each involved in checking the other’s equipment, but the crucial step was still missed, the association said.

“The investigation concludes that the dynamics of multiple passengers and instructors may be the key to understanding why the critical pre-launch procedures were not performed,” it said.

“The unusual aspect of a second pilot instructor being present for the event makes it is difficult to understand how the multiple phases of the pre-flight were missed by both pilots.”
[...]

Orders is expected to appear in a Chilliwack, B.C., court next April on charges of obstructing justice for allegedly swallowing a memory card thought to be related to the incident.

RCMP later reported that no images useful to the investigation were recovered from the memory card.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...stigation.html