US killer whale show to resume after trainer is killed
The park is reviewing security procedures
SeaWorld Orlando's killer whale show is to reopen on Saturday without staff in the water after a whale killed one of the trainers, the company chief says.
Jim Atchison said this would be the case until a review was finished.
He said it was believed an orca being trained by Dawn Brancheau dragged her to her death by drowning after her long ponytail swung out in front of it.
Her former coach, Thad Lacinak, said she would have agreed with him, had she lived, that it was a simple mistake.
'We will only resume in-water interactions with our killer whales after the review'
Funeral services for Ms Brancheau are to be held on Sunday and Monday in Chicago, with a memorial service to take place later in Orlando, park officials said.
The whale, which is named Tilikum, is to be kept at the park despite its links to two other deaths.
"He will remain an active and contributing member of the team, despite what happened," said Mr Atchison.
The company, which also has locations in San Diego and San Antonio, said it was reviewing its procedures for the whales and trainers to interact.
Horrified tourists using the viewing glass could see the 12,000lb (5.9tn) whale attack Ms Brancheau.
Ms Brancheau's sister, Diane Gross, said her sister, 40, had loved the park's whales as though they were her children.
"It was her dream job since she was nine years old," she added, speaking of her sister's ambition to work at
SeaWorld.
'Her mistake'
The president of SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, Jim Atchison, told a news conference that, while it was too early to conclude what had happened exactly, the park believed the whale had grabbed its trainer by her hair.
 |  It [the ponytail] was a novel item in the water, and he [the whale] grabbed hold of it, not necessarily in an aggressive way  Thad Lacinak Dawn Brancheau's former coach |
Earlier, Mr Lacinak, the former head trainer at SeaWorld who coached Ms Brancheau, said after viewing video of the attack that he believed she had made a simple mistake.
"She wasn't, obviously, watching what she was doing with her ponytail and the ponytail drifted into the water," he told ABC.
"Dawn, if she was standing here with me right now, would tell you that it was her mistake in allowing that to happen," he added.
Speaking separately to the Associated Press news agency, Mr Lacinak said: "It was a novel item in the water, and he [the whale] grabbed hold of it, not necessarily in an aggressive way."
An eyewitness, Sue Nichols, spoke earlier of seeing Ms Brancheau petting the whale and talking to it.
"Then all of a sudden he just reached up," she said.
"He got her in the water, and he took her underwater, and he had her under for quite a while. He came up out of the water, and he had her in his mouth."
An alarm was sounded and park employees scattered around the pool with a net as audience members were rushed away, she added.
Third death
Chuck Tompkins, chief of animal training at SeaWorld Orlando, has said Tilikum would not survive in the wild because the animal had been captive for so long.
He added that destroying the whale was not an option because it was an important part of the breeding programme at SeaWorld and a companion to seven other whales there.
However, this is the third death involving the orca.
In 1991, trainer Keltie Lee Byrne fell into a tank holding Tilikum and two other whales at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, Canada.
An inquest found the whales had prevented her from climbing out of the tank and ruled her death an accident.
At SeaWorld Orlando, in 1999, the body of Daniel Dukes, 27, was found naked, draped across the whale's body.
He had reportedly got past security, remaining in the park after it had closed, and wearing only swimming trunks, he either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water of the huge tank.
An inquest ruled that he had died of hypothermia but officials also said it appeared Tilikum had bitten the man and torn off his trunks, apparently believing he was a toy to play with.
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