A 53-year-old woman was killed while descending a 3,000-feet mountain after her husband used a smartphone app to navigate instead of a paper map which apparently showed the wrong path, the media reported.
Jane Wilson and her husband Gary were looking for a safe route off Tryfan peak in Snowdonia, Wales at dusk when the fateful incident happened in March and was under investigation, telegraph.co.uk reported on Friday.
Chris Lloyd, who was among the Ogwen Rescue team, described the route the pair had taken as "not a straightforward path".
"The image would have been small and not as detailed as on a proper map. There is no easy way up Tryfan but there are easier routes," Tim Bird, the leader of the rescue team was heard speaking at the investigation.
Mountain rescue teams present at the investigation said it is always better to use a paper map and compass to navigate instead of or in addition to any electronic navigation aids.
Exactly. Around here, we see this happen on a regular basis. Just this last week, we had another guy killed on the Angel's Rest trail in the Columbia River Gorge; he stepped off a cliff when he should've stayed on the trail. In the Coast Range, people end up following forest roads instead of sticking to the paved ones. They end up getting stuck and on occasion dying out there. And it's generally because the app said this was a good way to go. Then there are all the hikers who get lost in the Gorge and the Cascades. We have great S&R teams here, so if hikers just stop and hunker down, there's a pretty good chance that they'll be found - just don't use an app for guidance. They almost always lead you wrong out here.
Speaking of idiocy, I saw a photo earlier today in which the teen driver was not wearing a seat belt and his girlfriend was riding in the passenger seat, glued to her phone, with her feet on the dash and also not wearing a seat belt.
Depending on the circumstance, airbags deploy at between 100 and 220 mph. If that happened, the girl's knees would be driven into her eye-sockets.
People need to learn not to do dumb stuff.
