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Thread: Lenami Godinez (27) fell 1,000 feet to her death after she slipped from her hang gliding harness

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    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    Lenami Godinez (27) fell 1,000 feet to her death after she slipped from her hang gliding harness

    http://mydeathspace.com/article/2012...liding_harness

    Lenami Godinez-Avila had just started a tandem hang-gliding flight with an instructor – a gift from her boyfriend – when she fell from the glider, plunging hundreds of feet to her death Saturday in a heavily wooded part of western Canada, authorities say.

    Investigators trying to determine why she fell are accusing the instructor of trying to hide what might be a key piece of evidence – a possible onboard video recording of the flight – in his digestive tract.

    William Jonathan Orders, 50, was arrested Saturday and charged this week with obstructing justice, accused of swallowing a memory card from a video camera that accompanied the pair on the flight near Agassiz, British Columbia, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

    Orders is scheduled to appear Friday afternoon in provincial court in Chilliwack for a hearing to determine whether he can be released on bail. But it’s unclear if it will be postponed – as it was Wednesday – if authorities haven’t retrieved the memory card, said Neil MacKenzie, communications counsel with the province’s criminal justice branch.

    X-rays confirmed the card was in Orders’ body, and authorities as of Thursday morning still were waiting for the object to pass, RCMP Constable Tracy Wolbeck said. Investigators hope to recover the object.

    “It’s difficult to speculate” whether the card will have retrievable video, Wolbeck said. “We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

    The fall happened near Mount Woodside, from which Orders and the 27-year-old Godinez-Avila took off, more than 50 miles east of Vancouver.

    A witness, Nicole McLearn, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that when the glider was in the air, Godinez-Avila appeared to be wearing her harness, but it wasn’t attached to the glider. The passenger clung to Orders before she fell, McLearn said.

    "He was horizontal but she was now hanging vertically, and it looked like in essence she had him in a bear hug around the chest area," McLearn told the CBC.

    "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," McLearn said.

    Jason Warner, safety director for the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, told the CBC on Sunday that he talked to Orders shortly after the incident on Saturday afternoon.

    "He tried to grab her – he tried to grab her harness, everything he could, wrapped his legs around her – and she slipped down his legs and then fell," Warner told the CBC.

    Godinez-Avila’s boyfriend was videotaping the flight from the ground, the RCMP’s Wolbeck said. She said she couldn’t say how much of the flight was on the boyfriend’s camera, but the RCMP has the footage.

    Godinez-Avila’s body was found Saturday after an extensive search of the wooded area, the RCMP said.

    Orders told police he had swallowed the memory card of the onboard camera, Wolbeck said. When asked whether Orders explained why he had done so, Wolbeck said she couldn’t comment further on conversations he’d had with investigators.

    The RCMP said it and the Coroners Service of British Columbia are investigating the incident.

    “She became detached from the hang glider and fell, but how she came to be detached is what we’re still working on,” Barb McLintock, coroner with the Coroners Service of British Columbia, said Thursday.

    A call on Thursday seeking comment from Orders’ attorney, Laird Cruickshank, was not immediately returned.

    Orders is the owner and operator of Vancouver Hang Gliding. The business’ website said it charges $210 plus tax for an introductory tandem flight on weekends, and $190 plus tax on weekdays.

    For $30 extra, the website says, customers can get “video footage of your flight in memory card.”

    Godinez-Avila lived in Canada for nine years, having come to the country with her parents from Mexico, Wolbeck said.

    Pat Denevan, longtime hang-gliding instructor and the owner of San Francisco Hang Gliding Center and the Mission Soaring Center in California, said people who go hang gliding wear a harness. A strap from the harness is then clipped into a main “hang loop” on the glider’s frame, using a mountaineering carabiner, he said.

    A strap also is clipped to a backup loop, Denevan said. The straps are able to take thousands of pounds of force, and gliders are “good for six times the force of gravity,” he said.

    “It’s up to the instructor to check that he’s hooked in and that his passenger is hooked in before he takes off,” Denevan said of the typical tandem hang-gliding flight. “This is standard procedure.”

    McLintock said that if investigators determine Godinez-Avila’s death was an accident, the coroner’s service would take the lead in the investigation. Investigators are looking into whether pilot error or equipment failure were factors, and experts in the hang-gliding field probably will examine the equipment, she said.

    After investigators determine what happened, the coroner’s service hopes to make “recommendations both reasonable and practical to prevent future deaths in similar circumstances,” she said.

    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/03...all/?hpt=hp_t3
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    Senior Member moosella's Avatar
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    Administrator mydeathspace's Avatar
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    So bizarre that he swallowed the memory stick!

    It totally must show him doing something improperly.... or maybe even letting her fall on purpose?

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    has supermodel tits neenerneener's Avatar
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    uh. yeah, swallowing the memory card is not a normal reaction to someones death. O.o like....wtf. why would he swallow it (heh) and then tell the investigators about it if he was trying to hide something?
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    Senior Member aphaziak's Avatar
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    Whoever has to "recover" that card and clean it up for viewing has one shitty job, no pun intended. I think it's a safe bet he did something blatantly wrong, whether accidentally or on purpose. He was obviously panicking, as I don't know why you wouldn't just throw it on the side of the road or something, if the intent was truly to get rid of it. Interested to see what they find on the video.
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    sucks to your ass-mar Nancy Drew's Avatar
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    Wait, how do they know he swallowed it?
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    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    From the original post:
    Orders told police he had swallowed the memory card of the onboard camera, Wolbeck said. When asked whether Orders explained why he had done so, Wolbeck said she couldn’t comment further on conversations he’d had with investigators.
    X-rays confirmed the card was in Orders’ body, and authorities as of Thursday morning still were waiting for the object to pass, RCMP Constable Tracy Wolbeck said. Investigators hope to recover the object.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
    Quote Originally Posted by nestlequikie View Post
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    Senior Member andrea0121's Avatar
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    The article says it was in his digestive track. He could have stuck it up his butt and still been part of his digestive track I guess. Yuck.

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    Senior Member andrea0121's Avatar
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    ORrrrrr, what Puzz said.

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    sucks to your ass-mar Nancy Drew's Avatar
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    I guess a more accurate question would have been, why was he compelled to tell the police he swallowed it?
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    oMG, yeah, no, AMY is in no way superior to Tara. Never.

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    Senior Member kevansvault's Avatar
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    He probably (obviously) forgot to do something critical to tandem safety, which probably led to this tragedy and swallowed it to cover his tracks.... If that's the case, he's a dumbass. He could have dropped the damn thing and they'd never have found it. Ugh.
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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nancy Drew View Post
    I guess a more accurate question would have been, why was he compelled to tell the police he swallowed it?
    Because he is a jackass. What a maroon.


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    Administrator mydeathspace's Avatar
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    Was the camera attached the the glider or to the dude's helmet? If it was the glider, we'd probably only get the audio... unless of course, it was facing Lenami. If it was on the dude's helmet we'd probably get some "great" video. Bet it will never be released though. :/

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    Senior Member TheFavoriteDaughter's Avatar
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    Um, no thank you. This is some worst nightmare type of shit. I think I would die from the fear.
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    Senior Member korilla's Avatar
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    Fuck everything about this. UGH. I will never jump from a plane. Not natural.
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    Balls okac's Avatar
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    http://articles.cnn.com/2012-05-04/a..._s=PM:AMERICAS

    A Canadian hang-gliding instructor who police say swallowed a memory card possibly containing video of a fatal accident was granted bail Friday, a court spokesman said.

    William Jonathan Orders, 50, who was arrested and charged with obstructing justice, appeared in provincial court in Chilliwack, British Columbia. His bail was set at $5,750 (Canadian), said Neil MacKenzie, communications counsel with the province's criminal justice branch.

    Orders was instructed to turn over his passport and to not operate a hang glider or paraglider, he said.

    Lenami Godinez-Avila had just started a tandem hang-gliding flight with the instructor, when she fell from the glider, plunging hundreds of feet to her death Saturday in a heavily wooded part of western Canada, authorities say.

    Investigators say the instructor tried to hide what might be a key piece of evidence about what went wrong -- a possible onboard video recording of the flight -- in his digestive tract.

    The recording has since passed and is now in police custody, MacKenzie said. He declined comment on whether anything retrievable could be taken from the card.

    Calls on Thursday and Friday seeking comment from Orders' attorney, Laird Cruickshank, were not immediately returned.

    The fall happened near Mount Woodside, from which Orders and the 27-year-old Godinez-Avila took off, more than 50 miles east of Vancouver.

    A witness, Nicole McLearn, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that when the glider was in the air, Godinez-Avila appeared to be wearing her harness, but it wasn't attached to the glider. The passenger clung to Orders before she fell, McLearn said.

    "He was horizontal but she was now hanging vertically, and it looked like in essence she had him in a bear hug around the chest area," McLearn told the CBC.

    "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," McLearn said.

    Jason Warner, safety director for the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, told the CBC on Sunday that he talked to Orders shortly after the incident on Saturday afternoon.

    "He tried to grab her -- he tried to grab her harness, everything he could, wrapped his legs around her -- and she slipped down his legs and then fell," Warner told the CBC.

    Orders told police he had swallowed the memory card of the onboard camera, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Tracy Wolbeck said. When asked whether Orders explained why he had done so, Wolbeck said she couldn't comment further on conversations he'd had with investigators.

    The RCMP said it and the Coroners Service of British Columbia are investigating the incident.

    "She became detached from the hang glider and fell, but how she came to be detached is what we're still working on," said Barb McLintock, coroner with the Coroners Service of British Columbia.
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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    He must not have had her properly strapped to him. He was nervous knowing the cam would show his mistake and he tried to stop the evidence from being discovered.

    I bet he felt pretty stupid when everyone turned to him and asked, "So where is the footage??"


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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    SNAP.

    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/15...ght/?hpt=hp_t2

    Hang glider pilot apologizes for deadly flight

    The pilot of a tandem hang glider from which a British Columbia woman fell to her death last month has apologized to the woman's family and said he won't return to the skies again.

    "I failed in such a major way," William Jonathan Orders said in a statement he read Monday. "I want so much to relive that day and have it turn out differently."

    Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27, was on her first flight on a hang glider on April 28, when she fell 1,000 feet to her death in a forest clearing near Agassiz, British Columbia.

    Witness Nicole McLearn told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that when the glider was in the air, Godinez-Avila appeared to be wearing her harness, but it wasn’t attached to the glider.

    "She was very brave and I'm sure loved by all," Orders said. "Lemani was someone's daughter and I find that especially difficult to deal with."

    Orders said his own 12-year-old daughter was there when the accident happened, adding to the stress that led him to swallow a memory card containing video of the flight, something he called "my panicked action."

    "I disclosed to police myself shortly afterwards what I had done with the memory card, as a result of the overwhelming stress I was under," he said. "I realize that my actions caused this matter to drag out unnecessarily for Lemani's family and friends, and for the police and for that I am deeply regretful."

    Orders was charged with obstruction of justice for swallowing the memory card, which is now in the possession of police. They have not said if any evidence has been recovered from it. Orders is free after posting bond of 5,750 Canadian dollars.

    Orders, 50, also apologized to those involved in hang gliding for the "negative attention" the incident had brought to the sport.

    "My only true intention in operating my tandem hang gliding business was to introduce new people and bring new pilots to the sport which has been my passion for 20 years," he said. "I have deep regrets that I may have in fact caused the opposite effect.

    "I have concluded that I cannot and will not return to hang gliding," Orders said.

    Orders did not take questions after reading his statement.

    Victim's boyfriend screamed, "Hang on! I love you!"


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    Senior Member mialynneb's Avatar
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    Ugh, so awful. I don't even want to know or see footage of this. The poor woman and everyone that saw this happen.

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    Huh? you're a woman?

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    Senior Member poppy213's Avatar
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    So he is admitting he forgot to strap her in? Isn't that the main part of tandem gliding?




    Bless you Lenami♥, your boyfriend and your family in this tragedy.

    "Satisfaction of ones curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life" Linus Pauling

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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    Seriously fucked up. I am seriously surprised he is not being sued or charged for manslaughter. Not that I have any clue how Canada does things..


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    Moderator puzzld's Avatar
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    A passenger who tumbled about 1,000 feet from a hang glider to her death in Canada fell because she wasn't strapped to the craft and because the pilot failed to ensure attachment before takeoff, according to an investigation by a gliding industry group.

    Pilot William Jonathan Orders, who previously was charged on suspicion of swallowing a possible video recording of the flight, didn't perform a required "hang check" that would have revealed Lenami Godinez-Avilla wasn't attached to the glider, the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada (HPAC) said this week.

    Godinez-Avilla, 27, fell to her death on April 28, not long after she and Orders took off from Mount Woodside over a heavily wooded area near Agassiz, British Columbia, authorities have said.

    "A review of the events leading up to takeoff suggests that there were multiple distractions that may have resulted in a breakdown of standard operating procedures," said the HPAC's report, which cited witness accounts and its examination of the glider and equipment.

    Orders, 50, was charged in May with attempting to obstruct justice on suspicion of swallowing a memory card of an onboard video camera that might have recorded the flight, an action he said he admitted doing. Orders passed the card while in custody days later, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said Thursday that they've viewed the card's data but aren't discussing the contents.

    Orders posted bail in May and is awaiting an April trial on the attempted obstruction charge. A call seeking comment about the report and the case Thursday from Orders' attorney, Laird Cruickshank, was not returned.

    The report by the HPAC, which certifies pilots and suspended Orders after the incident, has no legal standing. Only an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would lead to additional charges, and the RCMP has yet to file a death investigation report, said Neil MacKenzie, communications counsel with British Columbia's criminal justice branch.

    Still, the Coroner's Service of British Columbia will consult the HPAC report and another expert report to inform its pending determination on the cause and nature of death, corner Barb McLintock said.

    Godinez-Avilla and her boyfriend each were to take tandem flights that day – Godinez-Avilla with Orders, and her boyfriend with another pilot, the HPAC says. It was her first hang gliding experience, and Orders' business, Vancouver Hang Gliding, charged between $190 and $210 Canadian dollars for introductory tandem flights.

    Godinez-Avilla and Orders took off first as other people watched from the ground. A witness, Nicole McLearn, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. earlier this year that when the glider was in the air, Godinez-Avilla appeared to be wearing a harness that wasn't attached to the glider and clung to Orders before she fell.

    "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," McLearn said.

    Jason Warner, HPAC safety director, told the CBC on April 29 that he talked to Orders shortly after the incident.

    "He tried to grab her – he tried to grab her harness, everything he could, wrapped his legs around her – and she slipped down his legs and then fell," Warner told the CBC.

    The HPAC says that having examined the equipment and other evidence, and having "eliminated any possibility of equipment failure," it concluded "that the passenger's harness was not connected to the glider on takeoff."

    "All suspension straps and connecting devices were found to be without defect and in good working order," said the HPAC, to which police had given access to the equipment.

    Bruce Busby, the HPAC's vice president, said Thursday that Orders alone had the responsibility of ensuring that Godinez-Avilla's harness was strapped to the glider's primary and backup loops with carabiners.

    Orders also was supposed to perform a preflight "hang check" - putting the glider in a flying attitude on the ground to see whether pilot and passenger, supposedly strapped to the craft, would hang in the middle of the glider, Busby said.

    "The hang strap is not long enough to allow (them) to lie on the ground. ... If you can lie on the ground, you're not hooked in," Busby said.

    Busby said none of the roughly seven witnesses that HPAC interviewed remembers seeing Godinez-Avilla undergoing a hang check.

    The witnesses don't include Orders or the pilot assigned to Godinez-Avilla's boyfriend. Busby said the HPAC hasn't had access to them.

    "Until such time that a statement from Mr. Orders is made available, the investigation assumes that pilot distraction resulted in a failure to perform recommended standardized safety procedures, resulting in the death of the passenger," the report said.

    Busby said he knew of no specific allegation of a distraction. "We think it's distraction, because something distracted them from the normal routine that they're required to follow to be an HPAC-certified instructor," Busby said.

    Reading from a prepared statement in May, Orders publicly apologized to Godinez-Avilla's family and said he "failed in such a major way" during the flight, the CBC reported.

    He also said he swallowed the video memory card in a panic but quickly admitted it to police.

    "I would like to apologize to [Godinez-Avilla's] family, to the police and the public for my panicked action of swallowing the memory card as I did," he said, according to the CBC. "I disclosed to police myself shortly afterwards what I had done with the memory card, as a result of the overwhelming stress I was under."

    He added that he concluded he "cannot and will not return to hang gliding," according to the CBC.
    http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/24...iref=obnetwork
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    lol at Nestle being some vicious smiter, she's the nicest person on this site besides probably puzzld. Or at least the last person to resort to smiting.
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    Moderator nestlequikie's Avatar
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    Ugh. How scared Lenami must have been.
    I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to. - Donnie Darko

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    Chin Checker g r ee n ey e s's Avatar
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    Well I an glad he fessed up to eating the memory cars right away.. At least he realized his mistake had to be owned. That poor girl. :swear;

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    Senior Member UncomfortablyNumb's Avatar
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    So sad and scary. I would shit my pants and then probably have a heart attack before I hit the bottom. That is so long of a fall. And reading that her bf shouted that he loved her...ugh it tugged at my heart. That poor bf and poor Lenami.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    She transitioned from a stupid asshole to a dumb bitch.

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