Continuity mistake: When Indy is struggling on the bridge, he breaks one or two of the planks. When they are shown again, they are undamaged.
Continuity mistake: When Indy starts climbing up the cliff after the water bursts through, we see a close-up of the back of his shirt, and there's one small tear quite high up. We cut to a wide shot, and now there are several quite wide rips across the back of his shirt. (01:36:30)
Continuity mistake: When Indy is in Club Obi-Wan, he spills a drink down his front. In the next shot, he is completely dry.
Continuity mistake: After pilots jump from the plane, there is a shot showing a view from the cockpit. You can see a propeller standing still, even before the fuel runs out. (00:16:00)
Continuity mistake: When the girl falls off the elephant, she falls off head first, and during a 5 foot fall, at most, manages to do a complete flip and land on her backside. (00:31:00)
Continuity mistake: As Willie Scott frantically searches for the diamond after the ice has been spilled on the floor, the red glove on her right hand disappears. (00:09:35)
Continuity mistake: Some bad guys throw knives at Indy as the band is seated and playing "Anything Goes". Then Indy throws a cymbal at one of the bad guys and the entire band is now gone. (00:09:30)
Continuity mistake: As Indy, Willie, and Short Round are going down the river in the raft, their positions in the raft keep changing, from Indy being on one side of them, to being in the middle, then on the other side, etc. (00:18:25)
Continuity mistake: When Indy is fighting on the conveyor belt, he is about to be run over a couple of times, but in the next shot he is further away. (01:31:40)
Continuity mistake: When Indiana, Short Round, and Willie are watching the ceremony at the Temple of Doom, just after Indy says "nobody has seen this for 100 years" you can also see Indy, shirtless, down near the alter on the top left of the screen and the skull is lit up. When Mola Ram walks out, it isn't.
Continuity mistake: At Club Obi Wan, Indy reminds Lao Che that Kao Kan tried to get Nurhachi without payment, and when Kao Kan raises his hand we see the gauze wrapped around his palm with a strip from his thumb area going diagonally down to his wrist, but in the next shot the gauze strip is wrapped diagonally from the opposite direction.
Continuity mistake: After Short Round snaps Indy out of his trance, when the Thuggee continues to lower Willie we see in her closeup that the flowers in her hair and the flower garland around her neck are already shriveled and blackened, but in her next closeup the flowers are back to being vibrant and fresh.
Continuity mistake: After Willie's rescue, when she tells Indiana they should get out of there, in the next closeup just as Indy says, "Right, all of us," this is a flipped shot, note Indy's Fedora, chin scar and red strap.
Continuity mistake: At Club Obi Wan, Indy places Nurhachi on the table in the closeup with his left hand, but when Indy puts the diamond on the table with his left hand it's not actually Indy's hand that we see in this shot.
Continuity mistake: During the melee at Club Obi Wan, Lao Che's goons toss Indy onto the dish cart which has a horizontal metal bar between two of its legs over the wheels, but in the closeup as Indy tries to grab the antidote vial, the metal bar has vanished, but it reappears when it crashes into the bandstand.
Continuity mistake: When the pilots jump from the airplane we see Willie asleep directly under the rolled up tapestries, but when she wakes up and starts to make her way to the cockpit as she coughs, in the wide shot we see she's coming from the area that's further in the back toward the tail.
Continuity mistake: At the bar, Indy punches the cigarette seller and packs fly all over the place. Half a second later the floor is spotless.
Continuity mistake: After Willie saves Short from the hole in the bridge, the river is filled with water. Seconds later, when Indy is about to cut the bridge, there's a wide angle where there's barely any water, with rocks coming out. Then he cuts the bridge and it's filled with water again.
Continuity mistake: A large pile of cash mysteriously appears on the table in the nightclub scene when Indy asks for the diamond. The glass nearby also refills itself. (00:04:15)
Continuity mistake: Near the end when Kate Capshaw, Harrison Ford, and the kid are on the bridge, Harrison cuts the bridge with a large sword. Several men fall into the water below. The bad guy grabs hold and hangs on to some of the henchmen. The number of henchmen changes between shots. Close-up 3, wide shot 2, close-up no men, then back to 2 and so on. The bad guy throws some off as he climbs up the bridge but the number changes in the wrong order.
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