Continuity mistake: Before the water tank falls, there's a shot on Mola Ram and his people next to it. Then there's a wide shot of the tank about to burst and the people running away from the area. Then the previous shot of Mola Ram standing calmly with his men by the tank is repeated, which makes no sense.
Continuity mistake: During the mine cart scene, Indy is sometimes seated on the back, others on the front, with no logic whatsoever, and sometimes between one frame and another.
Continuity mistake: When the rickshaw crashes, the sailor jumps out. One second later, from a different angle, he is inside the rickshaw jumping out again.
Continuity mistake: When Indy is in agony surrounded by candles, the three next to his feet change positions between shots.
Continuity mistake: When the three are leaning on the mountain with the jet of water, Short's arms are spread apart in the wide angle, but close to his body in the immediate close-up, a frame later.
Continuity mistake: When the pilots jump off the plane the flowers on Willie's hair swap positions for a brief moment.
Continuity mistake: While eating in the Indian village, Short's hat swaps back and forth from tucked down to his eyebrows or raised up, with his fringe visible.
Continuity mistake: While hanging off the bridge, Indy's shirt keeps changing from light to dark, and from very dirty to slightly dirty all the time.
Continuity mistake: The raft arrives in a big place with no snow, yet from the opposite front angle there's snow all around.
Continuity mistake: When Willie falls from the elephant into the puddle of water, her hair varies from very wet at the bottom to mostly dry from each different camera angle.
Revealing mistake: When Indy is hanging on the cliff as it falls out from underneath him (right after the mine cart scene), as he's kicking, you can see the stone wall moving in and out as he hits it after the rocks fall out underneath him.
Continuity mistake: In the mine cart, when Indy hits a tank with a shovel, the Thuggees behind raise their arms, yet a frame later, from a wider angle the arms are lowered.
Continuity mistake: When Willie and Short get to the bridge there's a big tree on the left. In subsequent shots it's gone.
Continuity mistake: During the first Thuggee ritual, there are two Thuggee Priests next to the wheel and lever. However, when the cage with the Sacrificial Victim is lowered, one of the priests disappears.
Continuity mistake: After the pilots bail out, the main engine has already stopped with the prop blade between five and ten degrees off-center, angled right. In the shot before Indy and company bail out, the prop is angled left, then right again.
Audio problem: In the first shot of the band inside the palace, to the left of the singer, there is a guy playing the drums. He's supposed to start playing the larger drum right before it cuts to the dancers. But, the sound of the drum starts before he starts hitting the sides of it.
Continuity mistake: At the start of the mine car chase look at the length of the braking poles on the side of the car. When they leave the main cave the roof lowers and the braking poles are slightly higher than the side of the car but were a lot longer to start with.
Continuity mistake: When that guy is lowered into the lava pit, the cage is level horizontally. When the empty cage is raised again, it's slightly at an angle.
Continuity mistake: During the mine cart chase, Indy hits one of the switches, putting it from the forward to the back position. When the guards in the mine cart get close, they shoot it, putting it from the front position to the back position again.
Continuity mistake: As the Thugee ceremony comes to an end, you see the stage hands exit and the spectators get up and start to leave. The next scene shows Short round looking over the edge and the stage hands are still on the stage, just starting to leave and some of the spectators are still in the process of standing up to leave.
Chosen answer: His neck was snapped by the whip getting caught in the fan. There isn't always blood with a hanging. Since the fan wasn't designed to hold a man's weight, the motor in it would have stopped or given out.
Captain Defenestrator