Tourist dies after jet blast fall at St Maarten's Princess Juliana airport
 

Sorry if this is the wrong forum... a fellow kiwi, sounds like she was blown off balance by a 737 taking off and was unfortunate enough to whack her head on something hard :( (EDIT - having just watched the 2012 video in the article below... just, holy cr4p).

Still hope it doesn't escalate into "jet kills woman, something must be done" tho, looks like fun if you don't let go ;

Jet Blast At Caribbean Airport Tosses Tourist To Her Death - cetusnews

well there are warning signs...

There's an aptly named forum on PPRuNe for these types of incidents.It's called 'Jet Blast'.

You made my day :O

Very sad and unfortunate; not aware of any actual deaths there before. Statistically, probably about like a death on an amusement-park ride.

Been there - didn't do that (only traffic while I was on the beach were the WinAir Twin Otters and one Lear 45).

People in general are idiots - its difficult to regulate for the lowest common denominator.

We had several people running under our final approach path and I watched several darwin-award contestants trying to hold on to the fence with KLM 747's preparing for performance / static takeoff.

Well, I guess it had to happen. I have to confess that I stood under the approach path for an AF 340 there. It's something you feel that you have to do there. Only did it once, am aware of the danger of course [exPPL], but there is no way that I would stand behind the take-off. Sand blowing, stones, very dangerous and very difficult to keep on your feet. Lovely place, but undershoot areas are for aircraft, not people and possibly getting blown into a concrete block can spoil your entire day.

And there, ladies and gentleman, is why people will continue to participate in this dangerous, and now fatal, pastime.

Unbelievable stupidity.

I am just surprised that it has taken so long. She must be a lead contender for this year's Darwin Award.

Very sad and sounds like a freak accident.

I remember standing fairly close behind a Vulcan under take off power many years ago....I didn't do that again.

Time for one of these:


http://www.airport-technology.com/up...mall/blj-1.jpg

It was only a matter of time at St Maarten. I'm surprised no-one has suffered serious injury in the past.
Edit: They have.

Deflectors should be required if people can be harmed on public land outside the fence. Signs or not.

Ol' man Darwin's at it again!

Maybe my memory fails me but I could have sworn that video is years and years old.



Old video reposted with a new date ?

Been there and done it. Would I do it again? probably not. Some may say I'm a contender for the Darwin Award, but life is there to be lived, not spent being too worried about the what if's and never taking a risk in your life.

Time for one of these?

Deflectors /diffusers are generally not sufficiently frangible to be placed there.
If they are tough enough to stand up to take-off thrust they are probably too tough to be hit during an under or over shoot.

Or they'll be too high and require a displaced threshold, probably not ideal there.

Never felt the need to join the idiots doing this. At least if you stand on the beach and get blown over it's only sand and water. If, like some - and possibly the victim, you stand at the fence and get blown over, there are large concrete dividers in the street to strike one's head on. Really surprised it took this long for a fatality.

The article states (just above the video) that it was posted on youtube in 2012. (The video is not of the recent incident as is stated in the article).

Reminds me of an earlier life looking after navaids in Saudi Araba. We had an intermittent problem with the localiser array and were constantly struggling to find which aerial was duff. One day, I was sat on top of the array when a flight of 4 F5s were leaving. Although the localiser array was a fair distance from the end of the runway, I was blown off my perch when they put the pedal to the metal.
On other occasions, I found myself at the other end of the runway taking localiser measurements, centre line width etc. While I was stand there with my wireless on a stick a Saudia Tristar came into land. I looked around to see this monster rapidly approaching and thought I would stay put. No problems as it went overhead at a decent height but I was amazed at how it can appear from my view point at the very end of the runway as though the plane was aiming straight at me!