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Man Dies in Grand Canyon Fall

Incident Is Latest In Site's History of Fatalities

Feb 17, 2008 Laura Smith

Mention of the latest death that has occurred at the grand canyon as well as previous accidents that have made headlines.

National Park Rangers retrieved the body of a man who had fallen 300 feet to his death at the Grand Canyon in Arizona on Saturday. The search for the missing man, believed to be in his 40’s, began when park rangers discovered an abandoned rental car at the Buggeln picnic area on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, searchers discovered a chair, camera, and other personal items near the picnic area suspected to be that of the driver’s. A ground search went underway to track down the owner of these items. Icy conditions were reported at the rim where searchers were looking. They located the body in the early evening on Friday and retrieved late Saturday morning via helicopter where it was flown to Flagstaff where an autopsy has been set up at the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Accidents such as these are not unheard of at the Grand Canyon, which is a popular tourist attraction for hikers and sightseers. Parts of the canyon are over 2 billion years old. It was formed from millions of years of wind and water erosion from the Colorado River as well as lava flow which cut into the rock to form the deep gorge. Each layer of rocks represents a different geological period in earth’s history to form a kind of scrap book of time. Its longevity mixed with human curiosity has created some deadly situations.

The most common types of deaths that have occurred at the grand canyon include heat stroke, falls, and drownings from floods. In November 2001, a woman fell to her death while taking a picture of her husband and family at the edge of the canyon. Her fall was twice as long as the most recent death, estimated to be about a 675 foot drop. Earlier that year in August, river rescue crews found the bodies of two hikers who had been missing for 10 days prior to being found. The two were believed to have been swept up by a sudden monsoon that occurred in the area as they were hiking.

Though the canyon was not the cause of it, the greatest air tragedy in the 50’s occurred over the eastern end of the Grand Canyon when United Flight 718 collided with TWA Flight 2 on Saturday, June 30, 1956. Both aircraft were considered the most innovative of their time, adding greater media attention to the tragedy yet all 68 passengers and crew on the TWA flight and all 58 passengers and crew members on the United Airlines flight were killed. Poor weather conditions were to blame for the collision and caused major improvements in air traffic control to come about, including adding collision avoidance radar on commercial aircraft.

The copyright of the article Man Dies in Grand Canyon Fall in Running & Marathons is owned by Laura Smith. Permission to republish Man Dies in Grand Canyon Fall in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.