Relative Places No Blame in Boat Death : Accident: Company head says choppy seas and high winds may have played a role. Florida agencies are investigating.

The movie location boat accident that killed 29-year-old stuntwoman Janet Wilder was the result of a “controlled situation” gone awry for which “nobody’s at fault,” her father-in-law said Wednesday.

Glenn Wilder, head of one of Hollywood’s leading stunt companies, said choppy seas and high winds may have contributed to Tuesday morning’s accident near Naples, Fla., which also left four people injured, including Janet Wilder’s husband, Scott, 33, and his father. Scott Wilder declined to be interviewed.

The Florida Marine Patrol, Collier County state attorney’s office and federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were investigating. Larry Gregory, a spokesman for the Florida Marine Patrol, said the investigation into the death would take a couple of days. The county medical examiner has not issued a report on the cause of death.

It occurred near the end of location filming for “Gone Fishin,” a comedy starring Danny Glover and Joe Pesci for Disney’s Hollywood Pictures. Disney officials have had no comment.

Glenn Wilder, 62, said he was playing a salesman showing boats to a couple--his son and daughter-in-law. The scene called for the boat to roar up a channel between two docks--himself on one, Scott and Janet on the other--and plow into nearby boats as the Wilders dove in the water to escape.

The craft, a twin-engine Ranger outboard driven by veteran Los Angeles stuntman Tony Brubaker, with Roy Farfel as passenger, was going 40 to 45 mph when it struck the docks, Wilder said.

The stunt, under the supervision of stunt coordinator Shane Dixon, had been performed Monday. But director Christopher Kane wanted the boat to come farther up into the channel, Wilder said. So the scene was re-shot, with more speed.

“It was the same thing, it just came in a little wrong. This is something I’ve done before on a couple of different shows,” Glenn Wilder said.

“The winds were heavy, the seas choppy, and it came off the ramp wrong. I knew it was wrong. It was a controlled situation, and it seemed like a perfect, safe place for her. But the boat came off about 8 feet further than it should,” veering toward the couple, instead of going straight, Glenn Wilder said.

The Wilders were holding hands in the scene. “He tried to push her out of the way. The boat flew over my head. I won’t know what happened until we see the film,” Wilder said. “As far as we’re concerned, nobody’s at fault.

“This is not a risk-free business, but we try to make it so. We may have gotten a little careless because we had done the stunt before, and we increased the speed. But this came off [the ramp] in a spot where we never expected it. Maybe the winds, maybe the tide was higher.”

A couple of months ago, Wilder said, his grandson had a finger cut off in a stunt accident. “This is the worst thing that ever happened,” he said.

The death of his wife was the second time Scott Wilder has lost a loved one during a stunt gone awry, friends said. In 1985, Scott’s childhood friend Reid Rondell was killed when the helicopter he was riding in during the filming of an episode of the television series “Airwolf” crashed on a hillside near Newhall.

“Scott is one of the safest guys in the business, because of the Reid incident,” said a friend and fellow stuntman who lives in Mammoth Lake and asked that his name not be used. But Wilson was not deterred from his professional goal, the friend said. “It’s not a Tupperware party when we go to work,” he said. “We get paid well for a good reason.”

Janet Wilder had previously worked with the family on stunts in “Passenger 57” and in San Francisco on “Nine Months.”

A private memorial service was planned for Friday at Forest Lawn in Hollywood Hills, according to Patricia Wilder, who is Janet Wilder’s mother-in-law. No time has been set for the service.