Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Tourist killed by jet engine on the beach
Blast blows thrill-seeker off fence at airport
A Thrill-seeker was killed by the blast from a jet engine in a risky airport craze.
The force made the bikini-clad tourist, 57, lose her grip on a perimeter wire fence and hurled her backwards on to a beach yards away.
She had serious head injuries and was pronounced dead in hospital.
The scene of the tragedy at St Maarten in the Caribbean is notorious for a danger craze in which tourists stand under the flight path next to the airport at Maho Beach.
The unnamed victim from New Zealand is its first fatality. Many other participants have been blown over while filming jets passing 100ft overhead as they come in to land.
One girl hurtled face-first into a wall and was badly hurt as she tried to withstand a blast by clinging to the fence in 2012. The tourist killed on Wednesday was with three relatives when she was sent tumbling by a Boeing 737 taking off at Princess Juliana Airport.
Tourism director Rolando Brison said: “Danger signs are clearly visible and her family recognise that they did wrong.
“They regret that the risk they took turned out in the worst possible way but I wish to express my deepest sympathy to them.”
The airport warning signs read: “Do not stand. Danger. Jet Blast.”
Mr Brison said he has launched an investigation and will be reviewing security video footage.
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