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If it were Tillikum, the biggest one in captivity, who is down at Orlando, the trainer would be GONE. Several years ago there was a Darwin Award winner who hid out in the Orlando park till after closing (getting stoned in the bushes). He took off his clothes and climbed down into the tank with Tillikum in it. They found him the next morning, dead, on top of Tillikum's back, with the whale circling the tank keeping the guy up out of the water. Unfortunately he died of hypothermia (the tank water is 50 degrees). The whale is trained to support a swimmer in distress, but there wasn't anyone around to come help.

That same whale was involved in another fatality in Canada in 1991 (does that make him a "serial Killer Whale"?) From a Frontline episode about the incident:

On February 20, 1991, University of Victoria marine biology student and part-time trainer Keltie Byrne, 20, slipped and fell into the orca pool at Sealand of the Pacific. She had just finished a show with the three orcas. Since Sealand trainers stay out of the water, she was not wearing a wetsuit. One whale took her in its mouth and began dragging her around the pool, mostly underwater. A champion swimmer who had competed at the international level, she was no match for three huge orcas determined to keep her in the pool. At one point she reached the side and tried to climb out but, as horrified visitors watched from the sidelines, the whales pulled her screaming back into the pool.

"I just heard her scream my name," said trainer Karen McGee, 25, and then I saw she was in the pool with the whales. "I threw the life-ring out to her. She was trying to grab the ring, but the whale, basically, wouldn't let her. To them it was a play session, and she was in the water." McGee and other Sealand staff tried to distract the whales by throwing them fish, banging on the water with steel buckets and giving them hand and voice commands. Nothing worked. Byrne came up screaming one more time and then, as the whale swam round and round the pool with Byrne in its mouth, she finally drowned. It was several hours before her body could be recovered.

She had ten tooth marks on her body, the largest on her left thigh, but was otherwise untouched. The whales had stripped her clothes off. "It was just a tragic accident," Sealand manager Alejandro Bolz told newspaper reporters. "I just cannot explain it."

The article provides hints as to possible contributing factors, including hunger, sensory deprivation of the whales, and unfamiliarity with people in the water (the trainers worked from land at that park). Perhaps the whales didn't even understand that people could drown so quickly.

Another incident from the same article, involving different killer whales at a different park, severely injured a trainer. From the video (warning, high wince factor), it's amazing he lived at all:

In August, the "accident" rate escalated. About a dozen accidents later, on November 21, 1987, Orky the mature five-ton male came crashing down on 26-year old John Sillick during a show in San Diego. At the time Sillick was riding on the back of a female orca. It was a crushing blow. Sillick almost died. He had severe fractures to both his hips, his pelvis, ribs and legs. After six operations in fourteen months, according to Sillick's lawyer, he was "reconstructed" with some three pounds (1.4 kg) of pins, plates and screws, including a permanent plate inserted in his pelvis and all his thoracic vertebrae permanently fused. He can walk today but his activity is limited.

And as long as we're on the subject of extreme Killer Whale incidents, anyone who wants to see an amazing but disturbing photo of a Killer Whale shooting a twenty foot plume of blood can click this link -- I won't include it in the thread. It's from this incident:

Sea World, California (1989): August 21 - During an afternoon show performance, "Kandu V" initiated aggressive behavior towards the larger orca "Corky", opening her mouth very wide and striking Corky broadside. As "Kandu" returned to the north back pool, she took her first observed breath exhaling large amounts of blood. The impact had fractured her upper jaw and lacerating arteries. The hemorrhage persisted for 45 minutes until death. (Sea World's necropsy report filed with NMFS dated September 11, 1989.)

Some good links, there, Ike. Very disturbing, as well. It begs the question: is ity really a good idea to keep animals so large, wild, and intelligent caged for so many years? Even if cared for to the highest standards by loving trainers, does such confinement of a formerly free animal amount to cruelty, however well-intentioned?

As for the eruptions of violence, there were far more than I had thought. However, they do make sense, in a way.

Orcas in the wild are essentially pack hunters, like wolves. Presumably they have a similar social structure, of heirarchy and competition for dominance. Like captured wolves, or even dogs to a lesser degree, they seem to joust for position even in their captivity. And, like the others, they obey humans in part by recognizing them as "above" them in the pecking order. It follows that, on occaision, they challenge that authority.

I was particularly interested in the newly-emerging theory presented at that one site to the effect that Pacific and Atlantic orcas may be "speciating", that is, separating into two different species due to their isolation from each other.

All in all, I might have to seriously discuss whether or not my wife and I will take our son to see the whales at Sea World again, at least until I could answer the questions he's sure to ask. As well as my own...the ethics of captive cetaceans seem to be in wide dispute, at least.