It would appear an extreme sport video crew learned a harsh lesson in aerodynamics last month when the star of their video was killed in British Columbia. As we reported a couple of weeks ago, “stunt rapper” Jon James McMurray’s body was found in a farmer’s field after he had reportedly tried wingwalking while rapping. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board has released its preliminary report on the bizarre (and entirely preventable) accident and it suggests that rather than wingwalking, McMurray turned himself into an effective lift spoiler for the Cessna 172 that was to have been the platform for his hip hop performance over the rural community of Westwold at about 5,000 feet AGL.
“The passenger on the right wing laid down parallel to the direction of flight, and began to move slowly toward the tip of the wing. Suddenly, the aircraft entered a spiral dive, with the right wing low. The pilot then motioned to the second passenger to release from the aircraft’s landing gear, while the aircraft continued to spiral to the right,” the TSB says in its report. That kind of detail is undoubtedly possible because the whole thing was shot in 4K video from a Cessna 310 camera ship, a videographer on the right gear and quite likely a helmet cam worn by McMurray. When the 172 flipped, the videographer did as he was told and parachuted to safety. It’s not clear how long McMurray clung to the top of the wing but his chute did not deploy. The pilot was able to recover at about 1500 feet AGL. He returned to a nearby airport and damage was found to the top of the right wing and the right aileron. The full narrative is below under the “Related Files” tab. It’s the third item in the TSB’s daily report.
