STUNT Gone WRONG: Jim 'Bullet' Bailey, USA

It happened on Wednesday 1 April 1981, in Hawaii, killing Aussie stuntman Jim Bailey.

Australian stuntman Jim Bailey, known as ''The Human Torpedo,'' fell 500 feet to his death from an airplane while making a film for television, authorities said. Initially, authorities said Baily was performing for ABC-TV's ''That's Incredible,'' but the show's producer denied having any connection with the accident.

Witnesses, including members of the Maui Fire Department and the rescue unit, said Bailey, a resident of Brisbane, Australia, was suspended underneath a single-engine Ballanca by a strap and belt when the belt broke. He hung onto the strap for a few seconds before falling.
Officials said the stunt called for Bailey to hang on under the plane during takeoff and slide to a landing when the plane made a ''touch-and-go'' on the strip.

Bailey had appeared twice on ''That's Incredible.'' In an episode televised Jan. 26, he was dragged behind a car and crashed head-first through a flaming wall.

On Dec. 8, 1980, an episode showed Bailey being dragged behind another car at 165 mph and then skidding 1,300 feet along the pavement. But Alan Landsburg, producer of the ABC show, said there was no connection between Bailey's death and ''That's Incredible.'' ''We have nothing going in Hawaii, we're not working there,'' Landsburg said from his Los Angeles office. ''We've been on hiatus for about three and one-half weeks.

We finished our season and we don't start shooting until June. ''The accident obviously shocks us, but there's no way it could have been our crew filming. I tell you it was not our shoot. The accident was not even remotely connected with ''That's Incredible.'' Landsburg said it was possible the accident involving Bailey was being filmed by a private company and Bailey later planned to sell the film to ''That's Incredible.'' Landsburg said accidents have occurred during previous filming for the show, prompting safeguards.

''We've set absolute limits on what we'll buy due to the accident factor,'' the producer said. ''We've had a few accidents and we didn't want any others. We made it very clear that we wouldn't consider that type of outside purchase.''

CAUGHT On Film: Man Murders Ex-wife’s Lover in High Speed Car Crash, and Continues to Assaults His Body

CCTV footage has emerged of a man driving into a couple outside a police station before emerging from the vehicle and proceeding to kick them as they lie injured on the ground.

According to Sina, the attack took place at around 10 a.m. on September 29 in city, Anhui province. The victims, a female surnamed Qin and male surnamed Min, had just got out of a taxi which had stopped in front of the police station when a black car drove into them at high speed.

The car was driven by a man surnamed Zhang, former husband to Qin. The attack is thought to be a crime of passion given recent disputes between the pair, although few details have been released as to the history of their relationship.

While Qin survived the attack, owing to the severity of his injures Min was pronounced dead shortly after emergency services arrived. Zhang is being held in custody by police while an investigation takes place.

Despite the attack taking place outside a police station, neither the security guard on duty or bystanders in the vicinity chose to intervene as Zhang assaulted his victims after the horrific collision.

Source

CAUGHT On Film: The Fatal Crash of Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili

Nodar David Kumaritashvili (November 25, 1988 – February 12, 2010) was a Georgian luger, who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Vancouver, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony. He became the fourth athlete to have died during Winter Olympics preparations, after British luger Kazimierz Kay-Skrzypeski, Australian skier Ross Milne (both Innsbruck 1964), and Swiss speed skier Nicolas Bochatay (Albertville 1992), and the sixth athlete to die in either a Summer or Winter Olympic Games.

Georgian postal stamp commemorating Kumaritashvili | Source

By December 31, 2009, the cut-off date for luge qualifications for the Olympics, Kumaritashvili was ranked 38th overall. As he had also raced in the minimum of five World Cup races over the previous two years, he qualified for the luge men's singles event at the 2010 Winter Olympics, which would be his Olympic debut.
On February 12, 2010, Kumaritashvili was fatally injured in a crash during his final training run at the Whistler Sliding Centre when he lost control in the penultimate turn of the course and was thrown off his luge and over the sidewall of the track, striking an unprotected steel support pole at the end of the run. He was travelling at 143.6 km/h (89.2 mph) at the moment of impact. At a test event in 2009, a luger had clocked a record 153.937 km/h (95.652 mph) on the same track, prompting Josef Fendt, president of the International Luge Federation (FIL), to comment: "It makes me worry."

CAUGHT On Film: Failed Parachute Attempt by Franz Reichelt

Franz Reichelt, also known as Frantz Reichelt or François Reichelt (1879 – February 4, 1912), was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design. Reichelt had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs.

CAUGHT on Film: Inejiro Asanuma (Politician), JAPAN

Inejiro Asanuma (December 27, 1898 – October 12, 1960) was a Japanese politician, and head of the Japanese Socialist Party. Asanuma was noted for speaking publicly about Socialism and economic and cultural opportunities.

His support of the Chinese Communist Party was criticized both from the right and by his colleagues.

Asanuma was assassinated by 17-year-old Otoya Yamaguchi, an extreme rightist, at a televised rally for the coming Lower-house election. Yamaguchi rushed and fatally stabbed Asanuma, and was subdued moments later.

The entire incident was captured on camera.

The assassin, Otoya Yamaguchi, committed suicide a few weeks later.

CAUGHT on Film: Michael Marin (Millionaire), USA

Michael Marin – a millionaire convicted of burning down his $3.5million mansion for insurance money – seemingly poisoned himself in court.

As the guilty verdict was read out, Michael Marin closed his eyes and held his head in his hands before appearing to slip something into his mouth.  Minutes later, the 53-year-old collapsed to the floor in convulsions and died.  The shocking scenes were caught on camera in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona, where Marin had been on trial since May.

The father-of-four torched his mansion in Phoenix on July 5, 2009, because, prosecutors claimed, he could no longer afford the mortgage.  Fire Department investigators concluded that the blaze was started deliberately after finding several points of origin throughout the sprawling 6,600 sq ft home, which boasted four garages.

Marin was found outside the burning property after climbing from a second floor bedroom using a rope ladder and wearing scuba diving gear, according to Fox News.  Marin faced 16 years in prison as the charge of committing arson in an occupied structure holds the same sentence as second-degree murder in Arizona.

Footage from the courtroom yesterday shows a shocked Marin covering his face with his hands before appearing to place something into his mouth.  The grandfather-of-two appears to swallow a number of times before taking a drink from the water bottle on the table in front of him.

Minutes later he appears to be struggling to breathe before collapsing to the ground as others in the court rush over to help.  Marin was taken to a hospital in Arizona where he was pronounced dead.

Toxicology tests will be carried out on the former Wall Street trader’s body and the water bottle he drank from.  MCSO spokesman Jeff Sprong told Fox: “Obviously if you watch the video it looks like he does put something in his mouth.  “We cannot verify that at this point and we’re not going to be able to until the toxicology report comes back.

“We will obviously contact family to see if this is something he hinted at doing, maybe he left a note you know, it just needs to be thoroughly investigated then hopefully we’ll find out why he did it and what he did.”

Did You Know?…

Cyanide salts are sometimes used as fast-acting suicide devices. Cyanide works better with higher stomach acidity.

• In February 1937, the Uruguayan short story writer Horacio Quiroga committed suicide by drinking cyanide in a hospital at Buenos Aires.
• In 1937, the famous polymer chemist, Wallace Carothers, committed suicide by cyanide.
• In the 1943 Operation Gunnerside, to destroy the Vemork Heavy Water Plant in World War II (an attempt to stop/slow German atomic bomb progress), the commandos were given cyanide tablets (cyanide enclosed in rubber) kept in the mouth and were instructed to bite into them in case of German capture. The tablets ensured death within three minutes.
• Cyanide, in the form of pure liquid prussic acid (a historical name for hydrogen cyanide), was the favored suicide agent of the Third Reich. It was used to commit suicide by Erwin Rommel (1944), after being accused of conspiring against Hitler; Adolf Hitler’s wife, Eva Braun (1945); and by Nazi leaders Heinrich Himmler (1945), possibly Martin Bormann (1945), and Hermann Göring (1946).
• It is speculated that, in 1954, Alan Turing used an apple that had been injected with a solution of cyanide to commit suicide after being convicted of having a homosexual relationship—illegal at the time in the UK—and forced to undergo hormonal castration.
• Jonestown, Guyana, was the site of a large mass suicide/murder, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple drank potassium cyanide–laced ‘Flavor Aid’ in 1978.
• Members of the Sri Lankan LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, whose insurgency lasted from 1983 to 2009), used to wear cyanide vials around their necks with the intention of committing suicide if captured by the government forces.
• On June 27, 2013, after being found guilty of statutory sodomy of a 14-year-old female, 48-year-old Steve Parsons ingested a cyanide pill and died shortly after in Maryville, MO.

CAUGHT on Film: Bud Dwyer (Politician), USA

Robert Budd Dwyer (November 21, 1939 — January 22, 1987) was an American politician in the state of Pennsylvania. He served from 1971 to 1981 as a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate representing the state’s 50th district. He served as the 30th Treasurer of Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1987.

In the early 1980s, Pennsylvania discovered its state workers had overpaid federal taxes due to errors in state withholding. Many accounting firms competed for a multimillion-dollar contract to determine compensation to each employee. In 1986, Dwyer was convicted of receiving a bribe from a California firm trying to gain the contract. Throughout his trial and after his conviction, he maintained that he was innocent of the charge and that he had been framed.

On the morning of January 22, 1987, he committed suicide with a gun during a televised press conference at his office in Harrisburg, the state capital.

CAUGHT on Film: Nordin Montong (Zoo Keeper), SINGAPORE

Cleaner/Zoo-keeper, Nordin Montong at the Singapore Zoo who jumped into the white tiger enclosure, was killed by the animals as a horrified crowd looked on helplessly.
Malaysian Nordin Montong, 32, was set upon by two of the three big cats in the enclosure at around noon.

Video snapshot

According to eyewitnesses, Mr Nordin, who was seen shouting and flinging items about shortly before the incident, vaulted a low wall and landed in a moat in the enclosure, four metres below.It was said that the tigers, which are nine years old and were brought in from Sumatra in 2001, would not be put down as they had acted naturally.