Mark Vanselow Rode a Helicopter Over a Swollen Oregon Waterfall for “Seraphim Falls” — and Got Dunked in the Warming Tank Afterwards

• Mark Vanselow went over a waterfall on the 2006 western “Seraphim Falls,” suspended under a helicopter.
• It had rained in Oregon for 30 days, so the river was running far higher than planned.
• Pilot Craig Hosking lowered him straight into a warming tank at the end of the gag, then landed.

Posted: November 2, 2026

Asked by Entertainment Tonight to name the most memorable stunt of his career, Liam Neeson picked one he did not perform. It belongs to Mark Vanselow, the stunt double who worked with him for 28 years and who directs him in “The Mongoose,” now in theatres. The gag was the waterfall sequence in the 2006 western “Seraphim Falls.”

The production needed a waterfall that was not frozen, which is the first constraint of shooting moving water in winter. They found one in Oregon — and then it rained for thirty days straight, through the shoot, so the river came up well past the volume the gag was designed around. Vanselow describes himself as “actually underneath a helicopter going over the falls,” which is a rigging answer to a water problem: keep the performer on a line off the aircraft rather than committing him to the flow.

The recovery is the detail worth noting. The team set a warming tank next to the landing area, and the pilot — Craig Hosking, who also flew on “The Mongoose” — dipped Vanselow into the hot water on the line before setting the helicopter down. Neeson, watching from the bank, says he was “very, very concerned.”

Source: The Independent — Liam Neeson reveals his most memorable stunt: ‘I was very, very concerned’

Learn more on IMDb: Seraphim Falls (2006) · The Mongoose (2026) · Mark Vanselow