Dozens of hang glider pilots trekked to a clearing off Mount Woodside near Agassiz, B.C. Saturday to honour the memory of a young woman who tragically died while trying the air sport for the first time last weekend.
Twenty-seven-year-old Lenami Godinez-Avila and her boyfriend had booked two tandem flights to celebrate their anniversary last Saturday. But somehow Godinez-Avila became detached from the glider and plunged 300 metres to her death as her boyfriend watched.
The group of hang gliders raised a cross in memorial of the accident and added flowers around a cherry blossom tree – Godinez-Avila's favourite – that was planted earlier in the week.
"It was an opportunity for pilots to express their grief and respect," said hang gliding safety expert Jason Warner.
Most of the pilots had never met the young woman, but all of them were touched knowing she shared their courage to leap into the air on a glider.
"We embraced her as our own, and so because of that, the deep sorrow is like losing somebody close to us," Warner said while fighting back tears.
Fifty-year-old William Jonathan Orders, the pilot of the fatal flight, has been charged with obstructing justice after allegedly swallowing a memory card from a camera on the glider that filmed the accident.
He was arrested shortly after Godinez-Avila's death and has since remained in custody. Police say they have now retrieved the card and Orders was granted bail on Friday. He is set to be released on Monday.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward
