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)
Factual error: It seems highly unlikely that a whip trapped around a ceiling vent can lift up a 150 Kg (300 pounds) muscled man without breaking, or even without making a crack on the ceiling.
Revealing mistake: During car pursuit, when the Chinese thugs drive into the food stands and two of them fall onto the tables, you can see that at least one of them is a puppet from the way his arm is rigidly sticking out when he has fallen. It should have fallen to his side. (00:11:45)
Audio problem: When Willie is trying to find the "Fulcrum Release Lever" she screams when Indy grabs her hand, but if you watch her mouth (just visible through her hair) it doesn't open. (00:58:20)
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.
Other mistake: When the three enter the palace there are many guards protecting it. When the miner kids exit the palace, all the guards are gone, which allows for a happy scene, but still it's quite odd that the Imperial Palace suddenly has no protection at all.
Continuity mistake: Before the first guy is lowered into the pit, the leader of the group is taking out his heart. Before he takes the heart out it is his real body, but when he is taking it out it is blatantly a model, as it doesn't have the same amount of hair and is a different colour. (01:00:10)
Continuity mistake: When Indy fights the two guards before the bridge scene, the sequence is all off. He knocks one to the ground, who lands still clutching his sword. The other one has his sword whipped away from him - it flies over the cliff, and he runs off, whimpering. We then see the other guard approach, and suddenly Indy's standing over an unconscious guard by the boulder and clutching a sword, both of which have appeared from nowhere. (01:37:25)
Continuity mistake: On the bridge scene Indy's sword changes. Initially, he has a sword with a straight blade and no hilt; however, when he shouts at Mola Rom, he has a something like a cutlass curved blade and heavy handguard to a machete-like weapon he uses to cut the bridge. (01:38:05 - 01:38:55)
Continuity mistake: When Willie and Shorty get to the rope bridge they start walking out and Shorty starts jumping on it, then in the next shot the sunburn on Willie's back is significantly worse and her hair differs. In the second shot it's presumably her stand-in.
Continuity mistake: While hanging onto the fallen bridge, both Mola Ram and Indy are pulling Indy's bag with the Shankara Stones, and note that this bag has three drain holes underneath instead of just two drain holes, which it normally has.
Continuity mistake: When Indy threatens Willie with a fork on her ribs, in the wide angles her arm is down, but in the close-ups it's up to allow for the fork to be seen. This keeps swapping back and forth, with no continuity at all.
Continuity mistake: The jet of water comes out through a squared hole on the rocks, and seconds later comes through many other places, making the first hole much bigger, and making pieces of rock fall off. However, when Indy cries, "Let's meet up at the bridge!" there's an aerial shot of him climbing and the mountain has the very same perfect structure as before the jet of water burst.
Continuity mistake: When Willie is put into the cage, she has many necklaces around her neck. However, a few seconds later when Mola Ram walks up to her, all of the necklaces have completely vanished with no sign of anyone actually removing them before. (01:15:25)
Continuity mistake: In the village, Willie grabs food with her hand and puts it inside her mouth. From the angle behind, the arm and hand are not raised and close to the mouth.
Continuity mistake: When the fuel runs out, the engines die and propellers stop. They are stopped as it grazes the mountain peak. In the next two outside shots as they exit the plane, you can see the propellers are again at full speed and can hear the engines. (00:16:55)
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