The death of a Canadian musician in British Columbia after an airplane wing-walking stunt that went wrong was called “idiotic” by the person who found the body.
“I was just really pissed off, because people that do idiotic stunts don’t think about other people if they have an accident,” said Sydney Fox of Westwold, who found Jon James McMurray dead on her family’s dairy farm.
Fox, 23, says she’s been having trouble sleeping since the tragic discovery.
However, a friend of McMurray, a stunt rapper, defended his actions.
“I think people from the action sports community do a lot of this stuff, and they happen to be flying over people’s properties,” said Chris Diollo. “I don’t think there was any intention, obviously, for the stunt to go wrong. But I completely sympathize with her and understand her position, as far as how she feels, and being put into that situation, and not having anything to do with it at all.”
“So I understand where she’s coming from and I sympathize with her family,” Diollo continued. “What John definitely didn’t intend for was this stunt to go wrong, and I don’t think anybody ever does. And I think that people can plan for different events the best that they can, but there’s always an element that can’t be planned for.
“So, unfortunately, that was one of these times. I can just send her the best from all of us and hope that it’s not too bad for her and that she recovers and she’s OK and she’s not too scarred from it. I can understand from how finding a body how traumatic that could be.”
Asked why, if there’s a chance it can go so wrong, someone would participate in extreme sports such as wing-walking, Diollo said it was part of McMurray’s life.
“Jon had a passion for action sports,” he said. “He was one of the most respected skiers in the world. He grew up doing stunts; this wasn’t just one random stunt that he’s done. He’s been doing this for the last 25 years. So he’s well respected within the community.
“He prepares for the stunt. He’s done a lot of jumps. He has his skydiving licence. He’s been practicing out of multiple friends’ planes. And in our group of friends, there’s lots of people with helicopters and planes that base jump and ski professionally and take a lot of risk. It’s part of the sport, so he knew it was a risk, but he had no intention of dying on the 20th.”
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McMurray died while filming a stunt for an upcoming music video. There were two planes involved at a height of approximately 6,000 feet. Film crews were in one plane and McMurray was in the other.
“He’s taken risks like this before; it was something that drove him,” said Diollo. “He loved to take these risks and he was always looking to step it up. This was one that he really wanted to do. It was a wing-walking stunt that he had been training for.”
Diollo said McMurray got out onto the wing of the plane, but when he got near the end of the wing, things went wrong.
“I think what happened was the pilot didn’t expect him to have as much pull, or as much weight, on the wing,” Diollo said. “And when he got out far enough on the wing, it started to turn and it went into a dive and the pilot lost control. By the time Jon let go of the wing, he was too low and he was moving too fast and he impacted before he had a chance to pull his chute. And he died instantly.”
Diollo added they still don’t know exactly what happened and are trying to piece together the accident.
McMurray grew up in Calgary but was living in Los Angeles, though he also stayed in Vancouver.
With his death, Diollo said they’re now remembering Jon as a highly positive, inspiring individual.
“He never spoke badly about anybody. It didn’t matter how bad of a person they were, Jon didn’t speak badly about him,” Diollo said. “He was just a great all-around guy; he was a beacon of light. If you met him for five minutes, an hour or whatever it was, if he touched your life, you’d remember it forever. He just had this incredible energy about him.
“He was super outgoing, exceptionally motivated. It didn’t matter what life stacked against him, he was someone who always pushed through it with just extreme optimism and determination. He was really an incredible person. He’s going to be missed by so many.”