Surf Cat

It was the kind of bizarre mishap that makes headlines around the world.

At the end of last month, a three-year-old girl survived a terrifying ride after becoming entangled in the tail of a giant kite and being swept more than 30 metres into the air during a kite festival in Taiwan.

According to news reports, the girl was attending a kite festival with family in Nanliao, near Hsinchu City, when she became caught up in the kite’s strings and went airborne, as horrified onlookers screamed below.

In video clips, staff at the festival can be seen grappling to maintain control of the kite’s tail before it takes off in heavy gusts. Once the kite is in the sky, however, it becomes apparent the girl has been ensnared, and is being thrashed from side to side, the kite taking her higher and higher.

It took around 30 seconds before the girl’s nightmare ended and she was pulled back to the ground by members of the crowd as the kite was brought back under control.

The child miraculously escaped with only scratches on her neck, but the distress caused by the near-disaster persuaded organizers to cut short the festival.

While bizarre, the Taiwan incident was only the latest in a rising string of alarming global kite mishaps, as we see from today’s high-flying list of Five Famous Kite-Related Tragedies:

5) The innocent victim: Famed kite expert Steve Edeiken

Kite tragedy: In 1983, in Washington State, an exciting attempt to recapture a world record led to the tragic death of a renowned American kite-flying expert. According to news reports, Steve Edeiken, 30, of Venice, Calif., plunged about 30 metres to his death after his ankle accidentally became caught in the lines of a 35-metre by 76-metre Jalbert paraffin kite.

Edeiken was serving as launch director for a team of students from Edmonds Community College in their bid to fly the world’s largest kite for the Guinness Book of World Records. A Dutch team had previously taken the record from the college.

“Steve Edeiken was one of the most well-known figures in the world of modern kiting,” Steve Lamb, owner of a kite shop in Lincoln City, Ore., said at the time. “As the creator of the Rainbow Stunt Kite, he revolutionized the sport of kite-flying. His colourful trains of manoeuvrable kites became one of the most popular kites in America.”

In order to reclaim the world record, the kite had to reach an altitude equivalent to the width of the kite and hold it for two minutes, which it apparently did, despite the tragedy.

“The kite had great difficulty being launched throughout the day,” Lamb told reporters. “It turned out to be a disaster. The kite roared into the air. It was a frightening spectacle.” There was a sudden gust of wind that spirited the kite into the air tethered by 250-foot lines that were attached to two dump trucks filled with sand.

“I didn’t notice anyone had been caught in it and had been overwhelmed by the sight of the kite. Suddenly I saw a figure dropping from out of the sky. I rushed to the scene where it landed. The doctors said his (Edeiken’s) heart burst on impact and he was killed instantly,” Lamb said.

4) The innocent victim: Van Minh Dat, 5, of Vietnam

Kite tragedy: Kite-flying may seem like a fun and frivolous activity, but news reports suggest it too often takes an unexpected and deadly twist. Consider a horrifying incident involving a giant kite that occurred in March 2015 in Vietnam and was captured in a grisly online video.

Van Minh Dat, 5, had been helping his mother out at her drinks stall at the Dong Dieu kite field in Ho Chi Minh when the accident happened, according to Britain’s Daily Mail and other newspapers. Dat was fatally injured when his legs accidentally got caught up in the kite’s string and he was flung into the air before the string snapped when he was around 30 metres above the ground.

His aunt, who witnessed the accident, said the giant kite, with a wingspan of about 18 metres, was being test-flown by members of the Saigon Kite Club in preparation for an upcoming festival. “One of the lines snagged a table near the drinks stand and knocked over some chairs as well,” the aunt recalled at the time. “Dat had run over to pick up some of the fallen soft drink bottles when his leg got tangled in the kite string, which just took off when it was hit by strong winds.”

The boy’s aunt and other onlookers rushed over to try and pull the kite back down but it shot into the air and was impossible to stop. A spectator’s video posted online shows the little boy flying through the air before falling as a crowd of horrified onlookers scream in terror. Although still alive when he hit the ground, newspapers reported the child died in an ambulance on his way to hospital.

A city council spokesman said later there were officials on hand to keep children away from the kites and prevent such a freak tragedy from occurring, but because the boy was with his mother working at one of the stands he had apparently been overlooked. The tragedy sparked an intense police investigation.

3) The innocent victim: Junichi Yoshii, 73, of Japan

Kite tragedy: Roughly two months later, a giant kite claimed another life in the central Japanese city of Higashiomi. In early June 2015, a massive kite weighing nearly one ton plummeted from the sky into a group of spectators, killing one and injuring three others during an annual kite festival in central Japan.

According to The Washington Post, flying a huge kite is an annual tradition in Higashiomi. The kite measures 43-by-39 feet — nearly the size of half a basketball court — and is made of nearly a ton of bamboo and paper. Spectators watched in horror as a 1,540-pound kite fell from the sky and slammed into four people during the Big Kite event at a park in Higashiomi.

One of those hit by the huge kite, Junichi Yoshii — whose age was variously given as 73 or 78 — later died from his injuries. The three others injured in the accident included two men, ages 78 and 62, and a seven-year-old boy, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Horrifying amateur video captured the moment the giant kite spiked some 30 metres down into the crowd, the New York Daily News reported. Bystanders could be heard screaming and crying. “It felt like a huge spear falling from the sky at high speed,” witness Yuko Kayaki told reporters. Kayaki, 29, said the kite showed signs of instability about five minutes into its flight. It appeared to tilt to the side and then it suddenly crashed to the ground as frightened spectators cried out and scrambled to get out of the way, she said.

Japanese officials promised an investigation into whether there was negligence by those flying the kite. “Safety measures were insufficient,” said Masakiyo Ogura, mayor of the city and chairman of the festival’s organizing committee. “I want to sincerely apologize to visitors and our residents.”

In 2004, eight people were injured when an even larger kite smashed into a crowd in Kanagawa, near Tokyo.

2) The innocent victim(s): A growing number of kiteboarders and kitesurfers

Kite tragedy: Traditional giant kites aren’t the only oversized flying toys that turn deadly. According to a host of news reports, kitesurfing or kiteboarding — in which participants ride boards and are propelled along water, land or snow by parachute-like kites — is becoming more popular and claiming more victims.

Last year, for example, the 14-year-old son of a famed competitor in the action sport died after a kitesurfing accident in Sydney, Australia. According to the Daily Mail, Alexi Bader, son of famous kiteboarder Christelle Le Baccon, had his kite caught in a strong gust of wind off Silver Beach and landed heavily on nearby rocks. He was rushed to hospital, but died of his injuries.

“I haven’t heard of any (fatal kitesurfing accidents) for years and years, it’s a freak accident,” kiteboarding NSW president Ben Herrald said at the time.

In 2010, a kitesurfer died after a gale-force wind dragged him across a beach at more than 100 mph before he hit at least three rooftops and then plunged 15 metres into the ground in the seaside resort of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, in southwest France. Adrien Monnoyeur, a 28-year-old from Toulouse, was on a surfboard being towed by a large kite when a particularly strong gust lifted him high into the air, the Daily Mail reported. But rather than racing across the waves at great speed — which is the purpose of the sport — he was lifted high in the air and began to head inland. Unable to detach himself from his harness, he was pulled high above the beach and over St Jean’s Grand Hotel.

An eyewitness told the paper: “It all happened in an instant but was truly terrifying. He hit a pier to begin with and then clipped the top of the Grand Hotel. Then he flew along a main street and grazed the top of the seven-storey Eguzkia boarding house, hitting a chimney stack. Then he struck the roof of an adjoining building before finally separating from a harness and plunging to the ground.”

1) The innocent victim(s): Dozens hit by “Manja,” a type of kite string coated in powdered glass or metal

Kite tragedy: Kite flying is a wildly popular sport in many parts of the world, but it has turned deadly in recent years, with people using strings coated in metal or glass to try to cut down competitors’ kites.

This past June, a four-year-old boy tragically died after he was struck by a kite string coated with powdered glass. According to news reports, the accident occurred as Lucas Vinicius de Souza Silva was cycling on his bike, which was a birthday present, in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Local media reported the kite was a “fighter kite” in which the string is coated with powdered glass so it can cut an opponent’s string in a game becoming popular in the country. The string reportedly hit the youngster in the chest, cutting him. He was raced to hospital, where he died of cardiac arrest.

“Lucas was a beautiful child who loved riding his bike, a boy who was loved by all and his smile and joy charmed everyone,” his grieving aunt said.

India is arguably the country hardest hit by this type of kite-related tragedy. Every year, the number of deaths and injuries jumps around Independence Day on Aug. 15 when many people traditionally take to the skies, often with kites painted in the colours of the Indian flag. In 2019, a young girl riding on a motorcycle with her father in New Delhi died after a glass-coated kite string slit her throat. A 28-year-old engineer also died on Independence Day when his throat was slit by a kite string while he was riding his motorbike. And a three-year-old boy was reportedly electrocuted after his kite string — believed to be wet and coated with metal — came into contact with an electric wire in the city.

In 2016, three people, including two children, died after their throats were slit by glass-coated strings used for flying kites on India’s Independence Day. The Delhi government four years ago issue an immediate ban on the production, sale and storage of strings modified to be razor-sharp, but many areas in and around Delhi continue to ignore the ban.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca