RALEIGH, N.C.—The Coast Guard opens a three-day hearing Wednesday on a deadly parasailing accident that spotlighted long unanswered questions about the safety of the airborne recreation.
And some parasailing operators say they hope the Coast Guard uses the accident as a chance to step in and start regulating an industry that’s been flying under the radar for years.
At the hearing in Wilmington, Coast Guard officials will take witness testimony about the Aug. 28 parasailing accident that killed two women at Ocean Isle Beach. Sixty-year-old Cynthia Woodcock of Kernersville and 54-year-old Lorrie Shoup of Granby, Colo., died when the line snapped between their parasail and the boat that was towing it.
The women died of blunt force trauma. Witnesses said they hit the water and the boat before crashing into a pier.
The National Weather Service had issued small craft advisories earlier that day as Tropical Storm Danny generated ocean swells and wind gusts up to 20 mph.
“The Coast Guard will try to determine as close as is possible what caused the accident,” said lead investigator Lt. Chester Warren.
The Coast Guard has summoned the boat’s crew, several passengers and a National Weather Service representative to make statements. Messages left for Ocean Isle Fishing, the company that owns the parasailing boat, were not returned.
“At the end of my investigation I will probably make safety recommendations,” Warren said. But he added he wasn’t sure if they would include Coast Guard enforcement of safety regulations.
Rusty Crager, an owner and captain of three parasailing boats in the Outer Banks, said he hopes they do.
“It would be great,” said Crager, who has been operating parasailing boats for 15 years. “I think everybody would be in favor of it if this is what it takes to stay in business and lower our insurance premiums.”
The San Diego-based Professional Association of Parasail Operators publishes industry safety guidelines and oversees safety for its members. Parasail operators pay a membership fee, agree to follow safety rules and are often rewarded with lower insurance premiums. “It helps gain access to insurance” that would otherwise be an astronomical cost burden, said the association’s president, Arrit McPherson.
A representative of the group will issue a statement at the Coast Guard hearing. The tow boat’s captain is a former member of the organization.
“I think that it may be time to look further at the possibility of a regulation in our industry. We hope that officials will allow us the opportunity to participate and develop a balanced set of regulations,” said McPherson.
PAPO members agree to random safety audits, but Crager said the organization has no way to enforce safety. Crager said he routinely notices PAPO parasailers breaking the safety rules.
“I’ve called PAPO two seasons in a row to complain about it. And you know what happened? They hung up on me,” Crager said.
He knows that pressure from boat owners can compel captains to fly in conditions they find unsafe. “I’ve worked for owners who’ve said, ‘Go! You can get one more in. The storm’s far enough away.’ I’m not losing my license because you want to make another $100,” said Crager, who didn’t fly the day Woodcock and Shoup were killed.
Neither did Peter Macsovits.
“We didn’t fly that day even though we were much further away from the weather and we operate on the sound, where it’s a bit safer,” said Macsovits, a manager at Kitty Hawk Kites, which offers parasailing in the Outer Banks. But Macsovits added, “It’s still a very, very safe sport.”
McPherson said he knows of four parasailing deaths in 2009—two in North Carolina and two U.S. citizens who died parasailing in Mexico. “Hundreds of thousands of people parasail safely every year,” he said.
Tyisha Woodcock, Cynthia’s daughter-in-law, said she and her husband Bart hope the Coast Guard decides to regulate the industry.
“Something like that should be regulated because you’re taking people up in the air and they’re putting their trust in you that you know what you’re doing,” said Woodcock, who lives in Marietta, Ga.
But until the Coast Guard steps in, Woodcock said potential parasailers should “listen to that voice inside your head that says, ‘You know, maybe you shouldn’t do that today.'”
