Parasail company’s license suspended

By ANDI ATWATER, aatwater@news-press.com

FORT MYERS BEACH — City officials Thursday suspended a parasail company’s operating license a day after the death of two of its customers.

Friends of Hope and Taylor Straney, who died in a parasailing accident Wednesday, left flowers Thursday at the scene of the accident on Fort Myers Beach as a memorial to the mother and daughter. Click on image to enlarge.

A Kentucky woman and her 13-year-old daughter died Wednesday after the pair plummeted 250 feet into 3 feet of water while parasailing with AA Parasail Waverunners Etc. Inc.

Code-enforcement officer Dave Crabtree said he notified Jeff Wolf, AA’s president, and Chris Schaab, who owned the company under its original name CRS Beach Service.

“I told them we are suspending their parasail license until the Coast Guard investigation is done,” Crabtree said.

The deaths have spurred renewed interest in the operating standards of parasailing, an industry that largely is unregulated by federal, state or local governments.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Lisabeth Hope Bailey Straney, 37, and her daughter, Taylor Straney, died because their parasail’s harness came apart.

Mark McCulloh, a former parasailing equipment manufacturer and founder of the Orlando-based Parasail Safety Council, said that without regulation, businesses aren’t held accountable for maintaining safe equipment or having adequately trained employees.

The council has developed a set of proposed rules, regulations and guidelines McCulloh suggests the Coast Guard adopt to regulate commercial parasail winchboat operators.

“Using the right equipment in the right weather conditions with a properly trained captain — it’s safe,” he said. “But parasailing is a very fragmented industry. Operators don’t want to be regulated — they think it will interfere with profits — and they’ve just pushed us away.”

Wednesday’s deadly accident is the second parasailing mishap in Lee County in a week, McCulloh said.

Broward County resident Denise Clark told McCulloh she was parasailing on Fort Myers Beach on Saturday when the boat stalled and she was dumped into the water where she struggled to stay afloat.

With the United States accounting for at least 375 of the 1,300 parasailing businesses worldwide, accidents are bound to happen — but too many of these accidents are ones that could have been prevented, McCulloh said.

The council cites more than 230 parasailing accidents — resulting in 68 serious injuries and 11 deaths — occurred in the United States from 1985 to 1995.

McCulloh estimates at least 30 U.S. parasailing accidents go unreported each year. The industry, he said, is secretive.

Richard Ramadon, owner of Wind and Water Sports Adventures of Fort Myers Beach, is opposed to regulation, saying that accidents are a risk in any extreme sport.

“Everything has a danger. Maybe a winch or engine conks out and you drop people in the water — but that’s part of the sport, part of the risk you take,” Ramadon said.

Seatow on Thursday morning towed the Premium Parasail boat to Dumont Marine from its overnight spot near the Holiday Inn Gulfside on Estero Island.

Seatow owner Mark Atherley said the outdrive — the portion of the engine on the outside of the boat — was missing. But he didn’t know whether it fell off during the accident or if rough seas overnight caused the loss.

McCulloh is heading to Lee County today to inspect AA’s equipment and boat at the behest of the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard, which issues a license to captains who operate a commercial boat, is also investigating the accident.

So far the agency does not regulate the industry nor require onboard inspections of a parasailing vessel or its equipment, Lt. Steve Ward said.

“The operator has the ultimate responsibility to make sure passengers are safe,” Ward said.

The Coast Guard investigation will look at the company’s maintenance records, equipment condition, weather conditions, prior history of accidents and other elements, Ward said.

But it took a fatal accident for those records to come under scrutiny.

“This accident, as bad and tragic as it is, has gotten everyone’s attention from here to Washington,” McCulloh said. “I hate to say it, but it takes tragedy to get people moving.”

Parasail operators on Fort Myers Beach are subject to town ordinances, one of which specifically addresses parasail businesses. The town also issues parasailing activity licenses.

The ordinance mostly addresses guidelines within which to operate the business on the beach — such as location and fees — but does stipulate that operators must be at least 1,000 feet from shore when they inflate or deflate a chute.

If AA Parasailing is found negligent, it may violate the town’s vessel control and water safety ordinance, which mandates “careful and prudent” boat operations.

Code enforcer Crabtree said he’d like to see the industry regulated by Fort Myers Beach but said the town has no resources to enforce it.

“I agree some changes probably are in order — it’s too bad we had to have a fatality to bring that out,” he said. “But how do you do that?”