Skydiver charged with Murder

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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What comes to be the most disturbing thing about the story is it alledges the skydiver charged has a history of violence and a personality disorder.

No one with issues like that should be skydiving and no one should let someone else skydive that they know about having issues like that!

Good luck with that idea.

Ask most of the whuffo population and they'd tell you we all have mental issues for jumping out of aircraft anyway...

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[Samurai136 0]

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But you CAN Shit in your own tub!

True that!

Walt

I don't believe it.

Proof! We want Proof!

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[waltappel 1]

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Proof! We want Proof!

PM sent. heh, heh.

Walt

[Samurai136 0]

Thanks for the Mr Hanky Pic's!

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[Bertt 0]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11589398

You don't have to outrun the bear.

[kingbunky 3]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11592629

30 year sentence handed down.

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001

[Phillbo 11]

Did they ever release details on how she sabotaged the rig ?

[normiss 798]

I've been curious about that too...said she did it with scissors.
HTF do you cut a reserve cable with scissors???

[skyrider 0]

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I've been curious about that too...said she did it with scissors.
HTF do you cut a reserve cable with scissors???

Standard news reporting....

[jf951 1]

well thats a scary thought,

just out of curiosity, how would one go about tampering with a rig like that with out someone noticing?

zip ties or small gauge wire would do the trick but surely that would be noticed when you go to look over your rig before a jump right? and im assuming there was no AAD in the rig either?

with a lot of time you could possibly conceal the tampering better but for me my first inspection of my rig is always my most through and it seems like it would be hard to get away with it in the middle of the day surely someone would notice you messing around with someones rig while at the DZ

i know this is all theory and speculation but does anyone know how this could be done? (realistically haha)

Jump more, Bitch less.

[ManagingPrime 0]

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just out of curiosity, how would one go about tampering with a rig like that with out someone noticing?

While the victim is in the other room getting banged by your boyfriend...you tamper with the rig.

From the reports i've read/heard I think that's how it went down.

A week before the fatal jump, the two women spent the night in his flat, Ms Van Doren sharing his bed while Ms Clottemans slept on a mattress or sofa.

Ms Clottemans would have had the opportunity of sabotaging the other woman's parachutes, which were in the flat at the time, investigators say.

Experts said it would have taken just 30 seconds to do so with scissors.

[jtnesbitt 0]

Given a small amount of time and privacy there are a large number of ways you could cause a total and not have it discovered with a simple gear check.

"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

[ManagingPrime 0]

Point taken. I'm going to make a point to never piss off other skydivers.

[pchapman 279]

Ok, just trying to make sense of the various threads.
This one seems the best?

Threads locked:

Woman Guilty of Skydiving Murder

Skydiving Murder in Belgium

Fatality - Zwartberg, Belgium - 18 November 2006
(that was the Incident forum one - good stuff until locked because the trial is over -- although questions about the details of the actual incident remain.)

Still active:

Murder by Parachute Sabotage
( Recently updated but shorter)

probably old but news on trial
(Not updated in the past weeks)

Keywords to help find this thread, many of which aren't actually here yet:
Belgium, Belgian, Zwartberg, Els Clottemans, Els Van Doren.


As for the actual sabotage, in the incidents forum it was reported that a rear riser got cut, and the main bridle at some place. The rear riser cut didn't apparently cause her to spiral in, but instead it whipped up and entangled with the bag, giving a bag lock.

A lot of details are still hazy (to many of us) so it would be nice to see a long news report and not just the usual short ones being copied all around the world.

[Liemberg 0]

Before we were so rudely interrupted Jurgen kindly answered a few questions of me. This is what I wanted to answer:

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Have you ever seen the pictures of the pilotchute hanging quite high in the trees? I have seen it. I have 4500 jumps, found back several freebags in trees, but I would never have recognized that pilotchute, how it was hanging in the tree, as a pilotchute. If you were shown the pictures, you too would believe that it was a bird or a bird’s nest.

Haven't seen it. And indeed you are right that I do not have enough facts. For instance, I do not know HOW experienced the convicted really was, what canopy / wingload she was under, at what altitude she opened, where she landed on that jump, if that was at the spot where she was supposed to land, etcetera.

(According to media sources, when you yourself announced what had happened, she was back at the hangar so I tend to conclude she didn't land out - which again could be completely wrong of course...)

That the expert was an experienced skydiver / one of her instructors and not a prosecutor I did know.
Not working for the prosecution in this capacity seems a bit too far fetched for my taste, however.

I would have expected that in such a high profile case as this one the prosecution would have chosen their experts / stand ins for the re-enactment a bit further down the road, but that may have been impractical and again, what do I know...

How the weather was on the day of the event I don't know either, I saw it described somewhere as windy (Dutch most southern weather station throughout the day gives 5 octa's cloud cover, wind 10 - 16 knts, highest measured gust 24 knts., predominantly from 205. Gotta love the internet...) How it was on the day of the re-enactment I don't know either, nor if they took wingload and body weight into account in the re-enactment. (Was Clottemans gear used? The person in her role had the same body weight?)

How good of a canopy pilot the convicted was is also unknown to me but in any case to know exactly where the pilot chute landed she must have stayed above the pilot chute to follow it until it landed and then safely land herself.

Two years before the event, in september 2004 apparently she was still learning the canopy stuff...

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The lover who had deleted a text message did this in presence of witnesses. He never touched the gear.

Which leaves three questions:

1. Did he right there and then suspect foul play and communicate his suspicions to these witnesses?
(in court he seems to have said that...)

2. Did these witnesses agree that it was a good idea, given the circumstances, to let him delete this message and did he in fact communicate there and then that he was not only telephoning the next of kin but also deleting a text message?

3. I believe I understood he was the first skydiver on the scene - all other witnesses in the first fifteen minutes were neighbours / EMS / fire-brigade / rescue workers; is this true or not?

"Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci
A thousand words...