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Police now have memory card from Burnaby hang glider pilot

The RCMP now have the memory card from Burnaby hang glider pilot Jon Orders. Orders' lawyer told the media in Chilliwack on Friday afternoon that his client has now produced the evidence.

The RCMP now have the memory card from Burnaby hang glider pilot Jon Orders.

Orders' lawyer told the media in Chilliwack on Friday afternoon that his client has now produced the evidence.

Orders is facing an obstruction of justice charge after allegedly swallowing a memory card with video of the fatal flight.

Lenami Godinez-Avila, 27, plunged to her death after launching off Mount Woodside in Agassiz on April 26.

Orders had been scheduled for a May 2 court appearance, but police were still waiting for the memory card to appear.

Orders' bail hearing was then moved to 1:30 p.m. today (May 4).

In an affidavit filed by police in B.C. Provincial Court and obtained Tuesday by Global News, it states that William Jonathan Orders "attempted to obstruct justice by swallowing a memory card which may have contained evidence in the sudden death of Lenami Godinez."

Godinez-Avila died Saturday afternoon after a 300-metre fall from the hang glider to the forest below. As her boyfriend looked on from the nearby hillside, Godinez-Avila became detached from the glider. Witnesses watched as she and Orders tried in vain to hold onto each other.

Her death is the fifth hang gliding fatality in Canada and third in B.C. over the past decade.

Orders, the owner and operator of Vancouver Hang Gliding, is a 16-year flying veteran.

His website says that photos and videos are available "using a specially mounted camera pole that captures you, your pilot and the amazing scenery around you."

On Wednesday, the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada (HPAC) announced in a press release that it had suspended Orders's tandem instructor licence.

"The board will await the conclusion of the investigation to determine the application of additional disciplinary measures," the release read.

The hang gliding association also named past president and "master-rated hang gliding pilot" Martin Henry as its accident investigator.

- with files from Tyler Olsen, Chilliwack Times