I appreciate dirty pictures, but this is ridiculous.
Posted on 05/12/2012 12:21:17 PM PDT by billorites
A Canadian hang gliding pilot whose passenger plummeted 1,000 feet to her death is in police custody until a video camera memory card he swallowed passes through his digestive system.
William Jon Orders, 50, has been charged with obstructing justice after allegedly swallowing the card from the video camera that was attached to the hang glider.
Authorities believe the card may hold evidence that could show what happened when Orders' passenger, Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27, fell shortly after the two were launched from Mount Woodside in British Columbia on a tandem hang-gliding flight on Saturday.
Godinez-Avila's body was later found in a heavily wooded area, police said.
"There have been a series of x-rays taken," Cpl. Tammy Hollingsworth of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) told reporters. "We have confirmed, so we're just kind of in the waiting process here."
She said the x-rays show that the card is "still inside."
"We've equated it about the size to our Canadian loonie dollar coin," Constable Tracy Wolbeck of the RCMP told ABCNews.com today. "It's not a big thing. It's a small little memory card that fits into [the] camera."
A Canadian loonie is slightly larger than an American quarter.
Wolbeck said that Orders "advised police that he had swallowed the card," but said that police cannot say anything else about conversations they have had with him because the investigation is ongoing.
"The circumstances surrounding the situation are very unique," she said. "We are working diligently so that we can find answers for the family."
Margit Nance, the executive director of the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, said that Orders was a fully certified instructor and tandem pilot who had been flying for 16 years. She said that all of his training was "completely up-to-date."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
From the headline I was wondering how he swallowed the card AFTER he died. I was thinking “Maybe he had it in his mouth and swallowed it when he hit the ground.”
Do you really think he was filming her free fall?
Very unique?
Joining the mile high club via hang glider is indeed very dangerous?
It will be hard to live with, knowing you might have been at least partially responsible for a deadly accident through negligence.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/06/hang-gliding-accident/
Here is a photo of the woman who fell. No way was she strapped in right
Not pleasant to contemplate, but the possibility exists of something up between him and the boyfriend involving money.
Are you Sh!tt!ng Me?
That National Post account was so creepy I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
I’m willing to presume him guilty based upon his conduct. Of course, if he was incompetent in his hang gliding as he was in his attempted cover-up, the result is somewhat understandable.
Police recover swallowed evidence from pilot in fatal hang-gliding accident
No news yet, except the awkwardly worded phrase: "We have processes in place to extract what is on the card.”
If it’s evidence why wait for it to pass. Cut it out of him.
I appreciate dirty pictures, but this is ridiculous.
This story is hard to swallow.
I wonder how much he’d charge to take Pelosi up.
It's not safe. Hang glider owners have about 10 times the fatality rate of motorcycle owners. The survivors usually have interesting stories about broken bones and hospital stays. To the old saying "there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but are no old bold pilots" add "there are poor lawyers and there are wealthy lawyers, but there are no wealthy hang glider instructors".
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