Parasailing

A 15-year-old teenager was killed and her 17-year-old sister sustained less serious injuries when their parasail rope snapped during a thunderstorm and they were slammed into trees and a hotel roof. The tragedy happened as the two sisters were parasailing off Pompano Beach in South Florida.

There were other boats with customers waiting to parasail that day, but the operators heeded the National Weather Service warning of approaching thunderstorms and headed to shore. The boat with the teenagers did not go back to shore, and the two sisters continued parasailing when the gust hit. Tragedy followed.

The captain of the boat involved told his attorney that he did not receive the weather warning on the radio and claimed that it was a day with perfect parasailing conditions. It was not perfect, said another operator, who was also out with a half-dozen passengers that day and decided to head to shore when the NWS announcement came. This operator saw the two teenagers still parasailing when his customers were safely on shore.

This incident renewed calls for safety rules on parasailing. Officials are not sure if any existing laws were violated in this incident, but everyone acknowledges the industry has very loose regulations.  Licenses are required only for operating commercial vessels but none for offering parasailing rides. The Coast Guard does not inspect boats with less than six passengers, which describes most parasailing boats.

The Coast Guard says parasailing accidents do not happen frequently. There were 64 injuries and 3 deaths recorded nationwide between 1999 and 2001, and 24 of these incidents happened in Florida. But between 2002 and 2006, Florida reported only 7 injuries and no fatalities.

The president of the San Diego-based Professional Association of Parasail Operators (PAPO) said that their group had favored self-regulation for years but this latest Florida incident changed their mind. A state legislator introduced a bill in 2006 that would have imposed regulations on parasail operators, including an automatic return-to-shore rule when wind velocities reached 20 knots an hour. The bill never made it out of committee.

After this incident, another state senator revealed plans to reintroduce similar regulations. If this had been in place, Saturday’s accident could have been prevented.

Some operators favor having legally enforceable rules, but others are more hesitant unless lawmakers draw up the regulations with inputs from the people in the industry. They insist that it is the operators who know what is safe. New rules will be meaningless unless enforced, they say.

The industry did try self-regulation but this incident proves that their campaign has been a failure, according to the PAPO president. The riding public cannot say less.