The year was 2006 and a new craze was sweeping the country. People were taking to the water flying around on Kite Tubes. Kite Tubes, or flying boat tubes, were pulled behind boats like other rafts but these were designed to take flight.
It’s not hard to see why Kite Tubes had disaster written all over it. Soon reports were coming in of riders losing consciousness, breaking vertebrae, ruptured eardrums, and punctured lungs as a result of taking a rid and crashing back down into the water.
By July 2006, the number of injuries had risen to 84 and three people were killed over a four-month period. This prompted the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Wego to issue recalls of the Kite Tube. Over 19,000 of the tubes were marked for recovery. It quickly became illegal to use flying boating tubes on many bodies of water throughout the US and Canada. In places where the boats weren’t banned, boaters were held responsible for any injuries caused by flying tubes.
It’s still hard to believe that this contraption was ever even allowed to be sold in the US.
