LADWP Gets TRO against Paragliding Instructor and Club for Malibu Site

• City Agency Seeks to Prohibit Further Use of Corral Canyon Land and Files Trespass Charges

BY ANNE SOBLE

The owner of acreage in Corral Canyon that has been used as a de facto paraglider launching and landing site for years, allegedly without authorization, has obtained a temporary restraining order against paragliding school operator Claude Fiset and the Malibu Paragliding Club.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also has filed a complaint for trespass against the same parties.
The grounds for the TRO are that “the city needs immediate protection from liability, as well as its legitimate interest in making sure the public and these trespassers are not hurt as a result of their illegal use of city property.”
On Aug. 8, a paraglider being instructed by Fiset was killed when his craft smashed into a hillside on LADWP property. The agency still declines to formally comment on the specifics of Jonathan “Jake” Langbehn’s death, attributed by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office to “multiple blunt force injuries.”
A spokesperson for the agency, who provided the court filings to the Malibu Surfside News, said, “We have a September date for a hearing on an order to show cause why a preliminary restraining order should not be issued.”
The LADWP, which provides electricity and water for the City of Los Angeles, has owned the 102 undeveloped acres for over 50 years, and the land is visibly noticed as private property.
Fiset, the owner of the Uptimal paragliding school, and the Malibu Paragliding Club, which, until recently, listed Corral Canyon as a site for its members’ use, were slated to be served by Sept. 3.
The defendants are to appear in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court on Sept. 17 “to show why a preliminary or permanent injunction should not be ordered, restraining [all] persons acting for you, or on your behalf, from entering [or] using property of the City of Los Angeles DWP...”
In a declaration by Deputy City Attorney Mary Dennis, who prepared the court filings, Dennis said she asked Fiset “if he would be opposing the motion, [and] he stated that he did not know and that it would be the subject of discussion with [Malibu Paragliding] Club members.”
Fiset told The News that there are “no comments just yet.”
Jai Pal Khalsa, the president of the MPC, said, “We would not comment upon pending litigation.”
In the trespass complaint, LADWP alleges that on Aug. 8,
“the defendants...were involved in some way with the death of [Langbehn, and] that at the defendant’s instruction and direction, the decedent began his paraglide from a precipice on the subject property and soon thereafter crashed into a hillside, causing his death.”
It alleges unknown past trespasses and that the acts of the defendants “were willful and fraudulent in that each defendant knew or should have known that none had permission to use [the Corral Canyon site] either for personal pleasure or personal financial gain.”
The city attorney’s office is seeking general and punitive damages, court costs and a permanent injunction against all future paragliding at the site.
LADWP has not stated whether there is any indication of possible legal action by Langbehn’s estate.
The accident has been a major topic of discussion on local and regional paragliding websites.
In a Web posting on the date of Langbehn’s death, an acquaintance of Fiset wrote about a visit to the Corral Canyon site a week or so before the fatal accident, “Claude was deep into training a newbie, who, when not doing confusing things with lengths of string and paraglider fabric, was a professional photographer named Jake.
“Unfortunately, what became clearer and clearer over the course of several hours was that the wind conditions were terrible. The wind was far too strong. Jake kept trying to launch, and for his pains was dragged around, flipped over, and generally abused by the environment.
“I watched his white t-shirt slowly become brown and amused myself by taking videos of his efforts.”
This narrative is still online, although it now offers condolences on Langbehn’s death.
Other websites include commentaries on the accident, including several that refer to “the hole”—a depression on the hill where Langbehn crashed that is said to produce rotor, or wind turbulence, under the very conditions that make Corral ideal for flight.
One paraglider wrote, “I can tell you that I have gotten whacked flying too close to the hole, and I’ve witnessed others taking collapses skirting this area. Based upon the placement of the pilot in the video [of the accident recovery operation], it appears that he flew deeper into the hole than I personally consider safe.”
Many of these paragliders think that there should be sites in Malibu for free flight and training.
There appears to be a consensus that since deaths of hikers and bikers occur in the local mountains, a PG fatality should not deter potential authorization of the use of motorless craft, even if motorized paragliders are prohibited because of the high fire danger in brush areas.