The pilot involved in the fatal hang gliding accident near Agassiz, B.C. on Saturday faces a criminal charge for allegedly withholding potential key evidence that could help determine whether he did anything wrong.

William Johnathan Orders, 50, of Burnaby was arrested shortly after landing his glider in a field at the base of Mount Woodside after his tandem passenger had fallen to her death, RCMP Cpl. Tammy Hollingsworth told ctvbc.ca

Orders has been charged with obstructing justice, but police would not elaborate further.

Lenami Godinez, 27, became detached from Order's hang glider just moments after takeoff.

Witnesses say she slid down Orders's body and pulled his shoes off his feet as she plunged 300 metres to the ground.

"She looked like she was horizontal, along with the pilot in command. A few seconds later, I saw that she was no longer horizontal. It looked like she was hanging vertically and had in essence bear-hugged the pilot in command in an attempt to stay up," Nicole McLearn told CTV News.

Godinez worked for B.C.'s Ministry of Environment in Surrey.

"We've lost someone who I think was very special," Assistant Deputy Environment Minister Jim Stanton said.

"She was clearly a bright light in the ministry, someone who showed a lot of promise and built some strong relationships with folks fairly quickly. So yeah, there's a lot of very upset and hurt people at the moment."

Former colleague Stuart Chase also knows Godinez's live-in boyfriend who had given her the hang gliding trip as an anniversary present.

"You never think it's going to be someone you know," Chase said.

"They were both very eco-friendly people. He's an environmental engineer and that's what he was making his career out of, and that's what Lenami wanted to make her life as well, something that was good for the planet."

Godinez's family is flying in from Mexico Tuesday while the BC Coroners Service and the police continue to investigate Godinez's death.

"Obviously, the first question is: how did this go so wrong? How can you fall out of a hang glider? Because, presumably, there's supposed to systems in place to make sure that can't happen," coroner Barb McClintock said.

Alex Raymont, who helped in the extensive search for Godinez's body, says he doesn't think she was properly strapped into the hang glider.

"It's almost certainly that she wasn't hooked in. I looked at the harness, I couldn't see it all and we weren't going to move her, but it's almost certain she wasn't properly connected at all," he said.

Orders is being held in custody until May 2 when he will face the charge in court.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Shannon Paterson