Hang-Glider Death: 'Man Eats Key Evidence'

A hang-gliding instructor is accused of swallowing a memory card that may have recorded the lead-up to the moment a woman slipped to her death.

Pilot William Jon Orders, 50, was taking 27-year-old Lenami Godinez, from British Columbia, Canada, on her first flight when she became detached from the tandem ride and fell 300 metres out of the sky.

Orders was arrested on Sunday and is being held in custody until his court appearance this week, according to Vancouver's Global News.

"Our investigators had enough evidence to prove he was obstructing justice and compromising the investigation, he withheld potential key evidence," Corporal Tammy Hollingsworth of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told local media.

The flight was a present from her boyfriend who initially videotaped the event but stopped when it became clear something was wrong and she was not properly strapped in.

Ms Godinez tried to grab hold of the pilot but she slipped and fell.

"He tried to grab her, he tried to grab her harness, everything he could, wrapped his legs around her and she slipped down his legs and then fell," a safety expert at the scene told reporters on Tuesday.

The young woman's body was not found for several hours as she had fallen into heavily-forested woodland.