Ku Chin-shui

Ku Chin-shui (Chinese: 古金水; pinyin: Gǔ Jīnshuǐ; Wade–Giles: Ku Chin-shui, 15 January 1960 – 25 May 2016) was an Amis Taiwanese decathlete and pole vaulter. He medaled for Chinese Taipei at the Asian Athletics Championships six times, winning one gold medal, two silver, and three bronze. At the 1990 Asian Games, he earned a silver medal in the decathlon. Upon retiring from athletics, he became a physical education teacher.

On 24 August 1999, an explosion on board a landed Uni Air plane injured 28 people and killed Ku Jing-chi (C: 古金池, P: Gǔ Jīnchí), the older brother of Ku Chin-shui. A report from the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) said a motorbike battery jostled, igniting gasoline in bottles in an overhead compartment. Prosecutors accused Ku Chin-shui of asking his nephew to bring gasoline on the flight.

Ku was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Upon appeal, it was shortened to seven and a half years. After a fifth retrial, he was declared not guilty. The ASC had commissioned an analysis from the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, which said the ASC's simulation environment differed from that of the aircraft which had exploded."

The court case caused Ku to lose his teaching position, and he worked part-time at a steel factory until 2008, when he returned to teaching full-time. Ku was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and died of plasma cell leukemia on 25 May 2016 at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei. Aged 56 at the time of his death, Ku was survived by his wife and two children.