Peter Reagan Paragliding Safety Articles


(Note: All writings below originally appearing in Paragliding Magazine and Hanggliding and Paragliding Magazine are copyright United States Hang Gliding Association. All writings provided courtesy of and reproduced with permission of Peter Reagan.)


The following material is a complilation of writings on paragliding accident analysis and paragliding safety written by Peter Reagan, M.D.  Most of these writings appeared as articles in magazines, including Paragliding Magazine and Hanggliding and Paragliding Magazine.

 

Heretofore this extensive collection of safety writings was unfortunately not available on-line.  I asked Pete if he would give me the orginal word processing files so that I could make them available on-line, which led to the creation of this document.

 

The writings are not in any specific order. What I did was simply put the original files all together in one file, inserting a line of ten astericks at the end of each writing. I also put the writings into a uniform font, but other formatting anomalies appear occassionally because of the disparate sources and original formats of the writings. Given the valuable safety information contained in these writings, I am making them available now rather than waiting to fix the minor formatting problems.

 

I suggest that there are two ways to use this material:

 

1.               Search within it.  Since the writings are extensive, they cover many safety topics.  So, if you have an interest for example in the role that  wingovers have in safety, try searching the document for “wingover”.

 

2.               Read it.  Perhaps during a bad-weather period when you long for some paragliding but the weather defeats you, use that time to read some of this safety material and learn some of its valuable lessons.

 

This compilation of writings is available also as a word-processing file, Microsoft Word format, that you can download: RIGHT CLICK here and "Save Target As" to download the Word file.


We should all thank Pete Reagan for the time he has devoted to producing these thoughtful writings for our benefit.

 

--Brian Stipak

 

 

       Summer is over for those of us north of the tropic of cancer, but many mostly delightful memories remain.  On the darker side, here are a group of in flight accidents under thermally conditions, each of which illustrate some of the less obvious aspects of our safety envelope.

 

Noon, summer,  desert site:

 

         The launch is on a ridge  above a northwest facing bowl enclosed on it’s east side by a rather sharp spur. The wind was crossing a bit from the north northwest, and thus probably spilling over the spur along the ridge east of launch. Several  pilots were in the air, finding effective ridge lift in front of launch and several hundred feet above the spur, good thermal activity on which to climb out.   A relatively inexperienced pilot launched a DHV 1-2 glider  and flew toward the northeast along the ridge crossing the spur only about 75 feet AGL.  Almost immediately he found turbulence, and turned left back to the west.  After the turn, the glider had a very large right asymmetric deflation.  The almost immediate reinflation was followed by a larger asymmetric to the left and rapid rotation roughly 180 degrees and a surge into the hillside.  Evacuation by helicopter was complicated by the afternoon thermally conditions. The pilot suffered a compound fracture to the right leg, pelvic and vertebral fractures and internal injuries requiring multiple surgeries.

        Experienced pilots on the scene felt  that this pilot was flying too low into an area where one would expect turbulence, both from air spilling over the spur ridge, and from thermals released by the sharp peak at the lower end of the spur.  This accident is reminiscent of  the Eric Lowhar fatality reported earlier this year.  It seemed preventable if the pilot had chosen to gain more altitude before proceeding into this turbulent area.  Reporters  suggested that the pilot had made a similar error the day before and had a near miss. Unfortunately, he seemed unreceptive to constructive comment at the time, and after the accident there was a certain amount of disapproval expressed toward the victim..

       But this pilot did not want to get hurt and in his own mind was not being reckless.  He was flying a stable wing toward a group of soaring pilots, expecting to get up too. I believe inexperienced pilots are quite likely to have this type of accident .  I can recall a day quite a few years ago when I was flying in a very similar situation with a more experienced pilot.  Twice during the same flight I crossed  into an obvious rotor area and had terrifying asymmetric collapses close to the hill. I learned slow, but happened to be luckier. 

        Zones that seem clearly risky to veterans will not be obvious to pilots who have not yet learned the subtleties of  air motion and felt for themselves the peculiarly malignant violence of mechanical turbulence.  Some pilots will have enough intuitive grasp of this, and many others will be lucky enough to gain enough experience before they break something.  I suggest that this genre of accident will only be prevented if experienced pilots pass on their wisdom at the scene to more naive potential  victims.   If you are intermediate or less in experience, you are extremely vulnerable to this danger.  You will not avoid trouble unless you ask other pilots on site for help in identifying dangerous areas. It is also a good idea to be open to constructive comments after a near miss.

         

 

        Summer afternoon, desert  site:

    

            A very experienced pilot launched a DHV 2 wing off a low angle SW facing slope into active thermal conditions.  A hang pilot had just launched and flown straight out into the house thermal and was getting established in the core. The victim launched and turned gently left in a trace of lift so as not to crowd the pilot.  " I was maybe 75 feet up.  About then my  day deteriorated.  The wing went whack and limp, and I glanced up to see  about a 75% L asymmetric collapse, with the tiny remaining right wingtip diving down and to the left.  I weight shifted to the right, pulled right  brake to keep from turning into the ravine, and looked down for my right  handed reserve handle and started to reach for it.  I checked the ground, and  found it to be only 50 feet down and coming up fast." 

       His collision with the third planet caused an open fracture of both bones in his right leg and three stable vertebral injuries. The hang pilot radioed his concern but the victim said he was "fine" and with some help from the only remaining companion, he was able to crawl back to his truck.  Incidentally, the pilot in the air circled to a site  altitude record followed by thirty miles of cross country. 

       Funny how different this accident looks since the pilot is more experienced.  This is a subtle event.  In a later communication to me the pilot described flying out fairly slowly and drifting left, then turning left as he gained a little altitude.Then he probably encountered the strong thermal that the hang pilot was in,  entering its rapidly spinning lower portion.   Under these circumstances, it is not certain that the accident could have been prevented, but two actions may have decreased the danger.  He could have flown straight out until he had a bit more altitude, perhaps waiting to give the hang pilot a little time to climb out, and he also could have used less brake  until he was higher.  A long, shallow launch slope is inherently more dangerous under thermally conditions than a steeper one that allows a pilot to get higher sooner. Finally, given the performance of current new wings, a person could tweak the envelope a bit safer with a DHV 1 or 1-2 glider.  

 

 

Summer, western mountain site, early afternoon. Strong thermals.

 

      Two pilots were flying along a steep wooded ridge next to each other  scratching upward in intermittent lift.  The inner pilot was a very advanced instructor.  He felt crowded by the outer pilot.  He experienced thermal turbulence and tried to get out of the situation by making a very tight turn away from the ridge in what had momentarily felt like lift.  His inside wing collapsed and he was hurled into a tree, experiencing minor injuries but significant glider damage.

        Expert pilots need space too.  It is difficult to predict what will happen in active air and being caught between a ridge and another pilot is a lot like flying in a narrow canyon.  None of us like to do that.  The outer pilot was trying to follow the master's example.  This a surprisingly common scenario and we all need to appreciate the forbearance of our mentors.  

 

      Thermally conditions are unpredictable.  They are exciting because they can result in the best altitude gains and cross country potential, but since they are turbulent it is important to leave more space for everything and everyone.  In this case, the concept of "margin" is literal.  It's seductive to follow expert pilots closely into lifting areas, but always be sure that your ground clearance, and your distance from other aircraft is safe.  Flying outside another pilot next to a steep slope decreases his options if he, or you for that matter, encounter turbulence.    

      It's been an interesting year.  We have had improved accident reporting.  The year was relatively safe with only one  fatality.  Keep up the good work, and keep filling us in when you discover a new risk situation. Thanks  -Pete Reagan

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Good Job, Pilots!

 

Mid December seems to bring on a pensive mood, partly you just can’t go outside much, but also because we’ve had another year of paragliding experience and can look back at it.  For those of doing the accident reporting this year is particularly gratifying.  It is not possible to know whether our reporting frequency is improving but since many more trivial accidents are being reported, we think we are getting a higher percentage of the serious ones.  For the third year in a row, serious injuries and deaths are becoming less frequent in our North American experience. And this year for the first time in over a decade there were no unpowered paraglider fatalities. Here is a brief account of the single fatal paramotor event:

 

      At a fly-in at a flight park, a very experienced motor pilot in his mid forties launched, flew to five hundred feet AGL and then entered a steep spiral dive.  He failed to pull out of the dive in time and splashed into a lake.  He was conscious in the water but unable to get clear of his equipment before he drowned.   He was known for low altitude spirals and had been warned to allow more margin. He leaves a wife and child.

 

      While this event  involved equipment and techniques that we nonpowered pilots don’t use, the judgment issues that led to the pilot’s death are very familiar to us.  Intermediate Syndrome can go on for  a very long time. In the friendly skies you can sometimes get away with a lot. Water, on the other hand, can be merciless.

 

      Three years ago when I started to write these reports I tried to find data allowing comparisons with other aerial sports and adventurous pastimes in general.  Back then I could conclude that our sport was roughly comparable to horseback riding or to motorcycling in terms of risk.  Hot air ballooning was also in the running.  However, although numbers are small and I don’t have a good way to measure statistical significance, our sport now appears to be getting significantly safer.  Our fatality rates and major injury rates are quite a bit less than those seen in recent statistics for horseback and motorcycle riding,  perhaps by a factor of two or three.

 

     Many factors are involved in this increase in safety.  The more important ones include:

 

        1.  The maturing of the foot launched community, so that there are many very

              experienced pilots throughout the country who are aware of the subtleties of

              flying hazards and from whom neophytes can learn.

         2.  Our sites are much better explored and their quirks understood.

         3.  Gliders and harnesses are a lot safer and manufacturers are more safety     

              conscious as well.

        4. There is more of an ethic of safety at all levels of flying.

        5.  People are more conservative in their choice of the glider they buy.

        6.  Schools are better organized, and the best ones are very much influencing the     

              culture of safety.

 

         As airline safety improved dramatically about 20 years ago the percentage of people flying commercially skyrocketed.  With a little luck our improved record may encourage more participation in the freest form of flight.

 

        I continue to believe that accident review is more critical than ever.  The worst possible effect of improved safety would be complacency.  Unlike airline passengers, our own safety depends almost entirely on our own judgment and skill,  and we are only reasonably secure if we continue to sharpen these.  With that in mind, here are a couple of instructive examples:

 

Midmorning summer alpine site.  Gentle up slope wind.

 

   A beginner pilot launched well, flew straight out about 1/4 mile, maintaining his altitude. Then he turned parallel to the ridge, and began to lose height at a normal sink rate.  He chose to turn back toward the lift but unfortunately tried to do a 180 degree turn toward the ridge.  There was not enough room to complete the turn and he impacted the slope causing leg and ankle injuries requiring surgery. 

         Three years ago when Steve Roti first asked me to do these columns I’m pretty sure I was selected because I’d already had most of the accidents I’d get to report.  I was lucky when I did this one.  I almost completed the turn when my foot hit a rock. I was rotated forward so in effect I did a swan dive a couple of feet above a boulder field  twenty yards wide.  At the far side some of my lines caught in an uphill tree, dumping me unceremoniously in the one patch of soft grass in the area, and proving once again that luck works some of the time.

         Chris Santacroce finds it helpful to instruct beginner pilots always to look away from the ridge as they soar.  That minimizes the chance of turning the wrong way. 

         Turning toward the ridge is an element in the next report as well.   In past years, we have reported  on a few unwitnessed fatalities during glassoff conditions involving less experienced pilots. This could  easily have been the fatal error.  It’s easy to misjudge how far one is from a slope as one is gliding away from it. In ridge lift, never turn toward the ridge. Don’t try a 360 in a thermal without leaving lots of extra space. Don’t tempt fate.

 

Dry Coastal Hills; evening, light wind, moderate thermals.

 

     Two pilots were soaring along a ridge in light lift. The reporter,pilot A, noted another glider approaching from the opposite direction somewhat lower than she was.  Pilot B turned in front of pilot A so they were both flying the same direction, A just above and behind B.  Pilot A became concerned about possible wake turbulence and decided to turn away from the ridge and give her companion some clearance.  Suddenly  pilot B turned sharply toward the ridge.  She continued in a very tight turn and simultaneously encountered lift.  A 270 degree turn placed her directly under pilot A and now too high to avoid. Pilot A screamed a warning, then found herself first sitting, then enveloped in the other glider. She fumbled for her reserve handle, but couldn't see anything. Seconds later B's canopy fell away and A looked up to see a 50% asymmetric deflation in her own wing. She had also reversed direction since she'd last been able to see.  She countered with some contralateral brake and the glider resumed normal flight. Meanwhile pilot B was observed to pendulum several times, to within several feet of the ground but finally to regain control.  Both pilots landed safely and were able to discuss the flight immediately.

        Pilot B was inexperienced, and apparently worried about another inexperienced friend back on launch.  She reported that she never noticed pilot A.

 

       In a collision so close to the ground these two pilots were very lucky to escape without injury.  Collisions are not commonly reported in the United States. They are probably under-reported especially when the outcome is benign like this. However a few years ago we had a fatal accident under almost identical circumstances.  The only difference was that the lower pilot was a foot or so higher. The upper pilot became lodged in the leading edge and the two fell to the ground together.

       Both pilots had opportunities to decrease the risk in this situation.  The lower, less experienced pilot B may have had more to learn.  She launched with a preoccupation about another person and therefore wasn't concentrating.  How do you make sure to notice traffic?  In this uncrowded situation the best way is to inventory the gliders in the air before you launch and always know where all of them are.  In more crowded conditions this is not possible and there is no substitute for simple vigilance in all  three dimensions.  It's always harder to notice a pilot at a different elevation from you. 

        New Pilots will have more trouble keeping track of other gliders than experienced ones do.Unfortunately the level of attention necessary will very much distract from the esthetics of the flight, not to mention the freedom of movement that the pilot has. 

         Finally pilot B  took a significant risk in turning toward the ridge at such a low elevation. Aside from the risk of impact the pilot abandoned the logical traffic pattern and confused pilot A. 

      Pilot A was aware of the oncoming traffic, but assumed she'd been seen.  In so doing she lost her only chance to affect the outcome.  If you don't make eye contact or get some kind of acknowledgement  from a pilot closing in it's important to make some noise.

 

      I imagine this kind of accident will become increasingly common, as  our gliders get safer, our skills improve and our sites get more crowded.  All of us who fly at popular sites are aware of near misses, and most of us have probably experienced them.  There are no good rules for determining how many gliders can safely fly in a given parcel of air.  The fatal accident a few years ago engendered a lot of constructive discussion.  There are so many variables.  Conditions can radically alter the amount of usable airspace. Pilot experience, competence, familiarity with the site, and how well we know the other people in the air will change things even more.   We all need to be conservative about this.  If it feels crowded it makes sense for some of us to go land.   This is also a good argument for exploring new sites and flying at less crowded ones. 

 

      Except when the pilot has died, we make every effort to preserve the confidentiality of these reports. A few years ago, the editors requested that the male pronoun be used to designate a pilot of either sex.  At the time, female pilots, and especially very experienced female pilot s were rare enough that disclosing their gender often identified them.  There are many more women involved now, and we have changed that policy  with this issue.  Thank you all for your continued participation in the accident reporting system.  Every report affects the year end summary and many will be described in detail  in the magazine. They all contribute to increasing pilot safety.

 

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Incidents ‘n Accidents

 

           Yesterday I  was in a hurry, because I had to take a flying companion who’d already launched, to catch a plane. I pulled up in fairly benign thermally conditions on a large, bare hilltop.  My wing came up nicely but as I was turning the leading edge started to surge. I ran out from under it, but about 40% of my wing collapsed.  I was going pretty  fast though, and while running was able to steer fairly straight and pump out the collapse.  I caught  a gentle thermal and was able to boat at launch level for a cycle before heading out. At the bottom I noticed that my Sup’Air air bag was unzipped.  These are two rather basic mistakes that cause injuries each year.  Being the preacher doesn’t  mean I don’t sin.

  As a matter of fact, here’s the accident I didn’t have.  Light mountain thermals:

 

      Relatively new pilot reverse inflated on a light cycle, and watched the wing come up crooked. After a few steps backward he turned and ran. The glider fell back on the left, and the rotation knocked the running pilot into the ground leading to a fractured clavicle.

        Paul Klemond comments: Develop a feel for the load you are putting on both of your A risers. Sometimes turbulence is the culprit, but usually the pilot is paying more attention to the foot-earth relationship than he is to the pelvis-to-A-Risers relationship. Collapses on launch occur when we fail to keep adequate loading/pressure on one or the other A-riser. Our hips/butt are what do this. The most common time this happens is in the 2-3 seconds during and after the turn from reverse to forward.  When this occurs, it’s almost always better to stop and try again.

 

 

      Mountain site, beginner pilot, DHV 1-2 wing, light conditions:

 

      Pilot was practicing spot landings but was too low to make the spot. He didn’t put his feet down, and didn’t flare until just above the ground. His feet impacted, pitching him forward and fracturing his ankle. We don’t tend to think of spot landings as being particularly dangerous, and they are a quite useful skill.  However, it is important to get upright early during the approach.  This enables a pilot to see, to be ready to run on touching down, or to execute a PLF. A safe landing is far more important than hitting the spot.

 

Here’s another variation on this theme. Coastal ridge site, high tide, squall coming in:

 

      Several pilots were in the air, but because of the squall most were setting up to land. the best LZ is usually the beach, but at very high tide a restricted parking lot in tall trees can be used. It is open to the beach via a narrow, short grass corridor. An extremely experienced pilot with excellent safety record was demoing a DHV 2-3 glider. He was trying to get into the parking lot as light rain was beginning to fall.  His final was too high and he flew through the corridor out to the beach, where he had no choice but to make short turns to try to hit a narrow strip of sand. He pulled too much brake and spun the glider at about fifteen feet. He landed hard, fracturing his foot.  He was within a few feet of the surf.

      Appreciate the cascade of events in this accident. In the Northwest we often fly at the coast with squalls in view, but it is questionable to continue flying when a squall approaches.   It’s generally not a good idea to make short slow turns at final approach, but at that point this pilot had no good choices.  The squall had increased the lift, and the demo glider had higher performance than the pilot was used to, contributing to the pilot’s misjudgment of his final approach. A DHV 2-3 glider has shorter brake travel, increasing the risk of an inadvertent spin. Finally the fact that the glider was wet made it more apt to malfunction.

 

      A simpler but similar accident occurred at another beach site several hundred miles away. An intermediate pilot was soaring an unfamiliar site on a DHV 1-2 wing, in steady, moderate conditions.  He made a sharp turn away from the ridge but pulled too much brake and spun the glider at about 70 feet AGL. The ensuing crash caused multiple fractures, surgery, and protracted rehab.  Be careful with sharp turns close to the ground, and remember that weight shift in our turns decreases the amount of brake needed and will reduce the risk of spinning.  .

 

     Here are two very different and very intriguing incidents to round out the report. 

      Inland southern flight park, smooth, late afternoon conditions, beginning pilot with 30 hours:  “unexpectedly lost altitude after passing the road; had already pulled the brakes and the top of the canopy flicked the electric wires.  It arced with the wire next to it, starting a fire in the dry brush of the wash. There were no injuries to the pilot and no interruption of electric service. Fire Department reported: ‘Burned bushes, no big deal’”.

       It is difficult to overstate the danger of an encounter with wires. At least two fatal electrocution accidents have occurred in the US over the years. I personally was pulled into wires on launch several months ago when a cycle I pulled up into became much stronger than the previous ones. It was the most terrified and helpless I’ve felt in a long time. Stay away from wires.

              

        Finally, there was an interesting incident at a tropical coastal site in the late afternoon, during strong, smooth conditions.

    

An experienced pilot was soaring at about 1800 feet perhaps 500 yards out over the ocean from the beach.  He was on the light side on a DHV 2 glider.  He had been studying the mechanics of aerobatics, and over the months had been experimenting with ever larger wingovers.  He decided the time was right to try a loop. He did a series of increasingly steep turns,  and on the third found himself upside down over the glider. 

                “The wing is now below me but I never have the sensation that I'm losing g's until I look up, straight down actually, and see my glider against the ocean. The glider is looking good at first, but it then takes a big frontal. Strange, I don't remember the feeling of falling but I do remember the trailing edge rushing up at me. The trailing edge hits me in the chest: I catch the trailing edge with one hand and push it past my waist, and immediately fall out of the glider. My boot catches a line and there is a tug then a pop as the line breaks. The glider is now a thrashingball above me and my feet are still above my head.”

       He threw his reserve,  jumped out of his harness near the ocean surface, and swam to safety,  recovering his equipment later with help from some nearby swimmers.

      This incident has been discussed at length in the local community, and also by the members of the USHGA accident review committee.  The pilot had  planned ahead to be able to cope with an aerial malfunction.  His actions after the failed loop were ideal.  But paragliders are not designed to do big wingovers or loops.  All aerobatic maneuvers raise the ante considerably, even over water.  

      To some pilots, aerobatic  flying may be worth the increased risk. But Chris Santacroce adds: “Please remember there are only a few dozen pilots worldwide who do aerobatics consistently. Most are professionals and most will admit that the outcomes aren’t always predictable.” The very edges of the envelope are only for ideal conditions, excellent pilots, and precisely compatible equipment   Very few of us can ever afford to go there.

       A final comment on this event concerns the equipment retrieval.  The pilot bailed out of his glider before hitting the water and this action may well have saved his life.  Airbag and big butt harnesses float the hapless pilot upside down.  But it is also very dangerous to retrieve a glider from water, even calm water. Fatal accidents have occurred under these circumstances. Non-pilot swimmer-helpers are unaware of the dangers, and are especially  vulnerable.  It is critical for all helpers  to have a personal flotation device, and much better to use a boat. 

       I have heard rumors about several unreported mishaps.  it is never too late to tell us about them. Even us old pilots benefit from your experience. Thanks again to all the pilots who took the time and the personal responsibility to help us all enjoy our sport more safely.

      

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(Header for article) 

The readers of this magazine have been requesting more in depth accident reporting over the last few years and the USHGA has redesigned the accident reporting process to improve this feature.  Regional Directors will be responsible for getting reports to  the USHGA office, and these will be furnished to a committee responsible for publishing articles about current accidents, trends and ways to improve our judgment and rquire less luck.  Current committee members are Paul Klemond, Pete Reagan, and Lars Linde.

 

 

Fatal Accidents in 1997

 

      Why study accidents?  Mistakes are made; bad things happen; we look at the circumstances and try to figure out how to avoid the same fate. That may be the main goal, but  tracking these events serve other purposes as well.  For one thing, it's important news. The daily paper is full  of woeful tales without object lessons.  And the participants in our own dramas are people we know and care about.  Accidents are naturally  at least a bit shocking, and as such  likely to generate a lot of rumor; therefore careful reporting helps promote more clear understanding, and it also synchronizes our experience so we can communicate with each other better.  Hopefully it makes it less likely that we will "learn the wrong thing" by having erroneous concepts about what happened.  I believe that it can also help move us toward safer practices, and equipment.

 

     In this spirit I'll review the deaths associated with paragliding in 1997. They make upsetting reading.  Each death is associated with a much wider circle of loss, which the loved ones may understand much better than we pilots do.  Compared with other accident reports, these all have an air of mystery; they are missing a central witness.  The cause is rarely clear, and often misinterpreted.  See what you think:

 

     January 28

 

Very experienced P4 pilot launched into beach ridge convergence at about 1:45 PM at Montana de Oro near Los Osos, California. Conditions were good and he initiated a solo cross country flight down the coast.  He was last seen at about five PM, one half hour before sunset, about twenty miles from his launch site, by a witness who came forward later in response to search efforts. The formal search was actually commenced about an hour prior, when his friends became worried. He carried no radio, was flying a Flight Designs A5 Sport.  He disappeared without a trace, and none of his equipment has been found despite a massive multi week land, sea, and air search, with significant media involvement.

 

April 17

 

Very experienced P4 pilot launched in strong thermal conditions near Winthrop, Washington in early afternoon.  He was flying a Flight Design B4.  He carried a radio, but the other pilot in the air had a low battery and a third pilot on the ground lost contact Fifteen hundred fpm lift and sink were measured by these other pilots  that day. He was last seen about 8,000 feet above the terrain about a mile south of launch.   He was later missed by his friends, who had assumed he had done a long XC flight, and a search was instigated. He was found the next morning by a landowner, four miles from launch.  Coroner report suggested an impact at fifty miles per hour and instant death. His wing appeared to have impacted leading edge first, and his chute had apparently been deployed close to the ground.

 

August 23

 

P3  pilot flying at Mount Sentinel, Montana with his non pilot girlfriend  watching on launch. He had flown the area before, but never in midday conditions.  The site has a spine that tends to have turbulence over it The right side of his Edel Quantum was seen to collapse and he impacted about one hundred fifty yards downhill from launch.  He was airlifted to the hospital and pronounced dead soon after arrival.

 

September 13

 

Very experienced P4 pilot flying a Trekking Mondial at Westlake Cliffs, near San Francisco, with other pilots in the air nearby, was seen to experience a large right sided asymmetric collapse, fly straight for a few seconds, then spin rapidly into the cliff for a high speed impact.  He did not move, and was found dead.  Interestingly,  the pilot had experienced a large asymmetric/spin, requiring a reserve deployment one month earlier at a nearby site. Even more interestingly, his cause of death was listed at autopsy as congestive cardiomyopathy (a heart attack scenario)

 

      It is difficult to be sure even how many of these events actually are in the strict sense paragliding accidents.  One may not even be a death. In another,  the crash may have had a medical cause.  There are notable common themes.  Perhaps most striking is the experience level.  A few other recent fatalities and accidents suggest that some of us become more vulnerable with increasing expertise.  It is also worth mentioning that  two of the gliders were very high performance wings.  Finally,  three of the deaths occurred while flying alone,  and the pilots had no radio communication. Two involved cross country flights.

 

     How dangerous is paragliding?  Since our numbers are not that great, it is not valid to try to calculate rates precisely  but we seem to experience about 4 deaths per year, and since our numbers are increasing, this suggests that our death rate is slowly decreasing.  Accepting all four events as paragliding deaths, last year we had a death rate of about one per thousand, or 0.1 percent.  To help understand this,  note that as a fifty one year old healthy non- smoking guy my risk of dying from a heart attack is about 0.17 percent, and my risk of dying in a car wreck is about  0,017 percent.  So maybe I'm six times as likely to die flying as driving, but almost twice as likely to die of a heart attack than to die flying.  Another way to look at it is that in the next ten years I have a 6.7 percent chance of dying.  One of those percent is from paragliding. An odd but somewhat sobering observation is that for me over the next ten years flying has roughly the same effect on my life expectancy as smoking half a pack a day might.

 

 

       Don't forget that a healthy thirty year old woman has a much lower all causes death risk, so that one percent from paragliding is proportionally a lot bigger.     I did run the calculation for a forty year old man, incidentally. He'd have to smoke a pack per day to get up to the risk he runs flying. It is unsettling to compare paragliding risks with cigarette smoking, since we all hope that talent and judgment might protect us better in the air. However it does begin to give a context to the choices we are making. 

 

       I am collecting data about accident rates in other sports, such as mountaineering and horseback riding, as well as footlaunched airsports in other parts of the world, and will include some of these in future articles.  It's fun to play with numbers and often the illustrations give us something to think about even if we can't make precise conclusions. For example, I worry a little that if most of our deaths are among very experienced pilots, those people might just have a substantially higher risk than 0.1 percent, since there are only several hundred of us. For me the bottom line is that the risk seems not so outrageously high that I want to stop flying. However,  it does seem unnecessarily high, and I hope we can find ways to decrease it.

 

    I'll conclude with a story from this winter that will not make our statistics, since it occurred out of the country.

 

December,  Ecuador

 

A P3 with moderate experience visiting from the United States launched a Pro Design Relax at about 9000 feet , soared for about 45 minutes, then headed out for the LZ. Conditions there were reported as sinky, and some pilots were landing short. At roughly 1000 feet AGL the pilot did a few wingovers, then initiated a spiral.  His wing went on edge into a stable steep spiral dive. The pilot was observed to pump the outside brake briefly, then make no further corrective action during the ensuing 6-8 revolutions, and probably did not deploy his reserve.  His friends were with him within  minutes but he had died.  Witnesses wonder if he lost consciousness in the high g spin, and if high altitude, tiredness,showing off, or jet lag played a role.

 

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2000 and Counting

 

In a generally relatively safe year of flying here in the USA there were several incidents that  merit further discussion from 1999.  Last year we found ourselves emphasizing an ongoing theme of the dangers of water landings.  A recent European paramotoring fatality adds another dimension.  The pilot launched at the beach during  15 mph offshore winds and was unable to penetrate back toward land.  He panicked about one hundred yards from the beach, and bailed from his harness at about 60 feet above the ocean.  He apparently was knocked unconscious on impact and drowned.  The powered flight community is commenting that he should simply have remained airborne and awaited rescue, but we glider pilots would not have had that choice.  It  demonstrates the difficulties we experience with judging altitude over the water, and the substantial risk of jumping from too high.  If you are being forced into the water, there is clearly a lot to think about.  Here is the other side of the issue, from a pilot who waited too long:

 

         An intermediate pilot coincidentally a very strong swimmer was tow-launching a DHV 1-2 glider over water.  The boat lost power and the pilot stayed in the harness, hoping that the boat would recover and tow him up.  This didn’t occur and he flared to swing the glider ahead of him in the water.  He was wearing a harness with a large, padded back protector, but also a partially inflated flotation device. When he landed, he  was instantly thrown violently forward and his face held under water in spite of his extra flotation. He could keep his face out of water only by swimming sidestroke. He tried to unbuckle his harness while holding his breath, but noted he was tiring and was afraid he might drown before finishing.  He went back to swimming, gradually becoming entangled in his lines.  Meanwhile the boat restarted and eventually was able to get back to him in time. 

       In a different towing incident a boat lost power when the glider was only 30 feet over the water. The pilot attempted to unhook his straps but was face down in the water too soon.  With calm and care he was able to undo his chest strap but his face was still partially under water.  He was rescued immediately.

 

      Neither of these pilots had any injuries, but the risk was high.  Water landings must be taken exceedingly seriously, even in flat water.  Careful thought about the possibility of water landing and mental rehearsal of the best response for the given situation is important. it is critical to rescue the pilot as soon as possible.   There may be opportunities for manufacturers to improve harness design.

 

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        Incidentally, in the vein  of  harness design, the DHV has recently completed a survey of 120 hospitalizations including 40 back injuries and concluded that foam back protectors are the most benefit. Air bags help some but not nearly as much, and rigid back protectors don’t work. They stress their advice to land on your feet, knees bent, ready to run or PLF.

 

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      High coastal site, midsummer:

 

        An experienced pilot was preparing  to launch a DHV 2-3  wing during mid morning;  weather as clear with light winds crossed about 20 deg. from the left, and mild thermal activity. The pilot was running forward after a clean reverse inflation when the left wing started to collapse.  He was committed to launch at that point.  After launch the collapse increased to greater than 50% and the glider experienced a diving left turn back into the cliff face. The pilot executed a PLF but fractured his left fibula.  There were no witnesses who could help the pilot understand  exactly what had happened. This is a very popular site with a lot of commercial tandem activity, and does not have a history of severe unexpected turbulence.  The pilot guesses that thermal turbulence caused the left wing collapse just as he was launching. He didn’t notice unweighting the wing  prior to launch.

 

      This accident is a bit difficult to reconstruct given the lack of eyewitness reports.  However there are only two possible causes of a progressive collapse at launch. One involves a line tangle, and mandates greater care to layout. The other  involves unweighting of the affected side of the wing.  This latter is very common, usually associated with loss of control during the turn from reverse to forward, but also can be caused by inadequate braking at  the end of a forward inflation.  It is less common to have this unweighting  because of  turbulence strong enough to cause a collapse in the air.  In any case the high performance wing would have been more likely to collapse, slower to recover, and likely to dive harder.   

 

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   Here’s an accident editor’s dream; an incredible story from South Africa with messages for all of us.

 

Extremely experienced pilot on a two year old DHV 3 wing with 290 hours of air time was playing in smooth glassoff lift at sunset at about 6000 ft. agl(!!!) He decided to descend because of the late hour and initiated a well controlled spiral dive. When he achieved about  2400 ft./min sink rate he suddenly heard a sound like a tree branch cracking.  He looked up and observed his middle cascade lines breaking in a rapid chain reaction. In one second about half of them were gone and he entered a free fall. He heard a ripping sound and the glider tore apart.  He decided not to throw his reserve immediately, for fear of being blown back over the mountain in the gathering darkness. To the amazement of his colleagues he plunged earthward at 50 mph until reaching an altitude of 2000 feet, where he finally deployed his parachute, by throwing it hard forward. At this descent rate it rocketed upwards  directly into his flapping canopy.  It didn’t open right away but gradually tore a large hole in the wing and stabilized the descent to about 800 fpm.  He gathered the tattered fragments of canopy and then landed in a PLF without a scratch.

        Inspection of wreckage revealed  1/2 of all the central cascade lines from the A, B, and C risers to be broken, some at the splices, but some in the middle. On the smaller of the two wing fragments, all of the brake attachment points were ripped out of the glider fabric.

 

       Many observations can be made.  One of the more esoteric was the  pilot’s comment that the main lines didn’t fail; they were the ones that had been previously replaced.  The accident argues for the replacement of all lines, perhaps at 200 hours of air time.  However there are many other more basic principles illustrated here. To whit:

 

         1. You never know what will happen next, and bad things can happen in mild                 

             conditions.

        

         2. Maneuvers increase the likelihood of many different kinds of malfunctions

 

         3. The age of equipment matters.

 

          4.  Don’t panic.

 

          5. Never give up.

 

          6. Reserves work, and sometimes may be your only hope.

 

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        When I write these reports,  I invariably find some comfort that in hindsight I can second guess the pilot’s decision and figure out how the accident could have been prevented. The next report is unsettling because, I can’t do that. It is actually an unusual event in several respects.

 

Mountain site, autumn.  The weather was clear and stable with minimal prevailing wind, a light inversion, and very mild thermal activity. Several pilots launched, working light and mellow lift to prolong their sled rides.  An extremely experienced pilot did a reverse inflation in light wind with a DHV 1-2 glider,  and flew down toward the LZ in about 50 fpm sink, flying through occasional very light and narrow lift cycles.  Other pilots were gradually sinking out too and no one experienced any turbulence.


       "Suddenly, without warning, it felt like the right side of my glider had collapsed, and I was being pulled up by the left riser, and looking straight up into the wing. The right side of the wing was cascading down toward me, and I wondered if it was going to actually come within my reach. I went for my chute, butdidn't throw it. I heard a loud crack or snap, which I think was the glider reinflating, and I felt a surge. The rest of my memory of the flight is not very clear. When the glider collapsed, I think the chest strap was completely unweighted on the right side, from the lack of tension on the right riser. The tension on the left riser pulled the chest strap up sharply on the left, allowing it to slip under my rib cage on the right. When the glider recovered, I think the chest strap on the right pulled up under my rib cage and liver with such force as to cause internal bleeding, extremely sharp pain, and loss of consciousness." Witnesses saw the huge collapse, then a spiral dive, a recovery and big surge, a second collapse and uncontrolled landing into the hill. The entire mishap lasted twenty seconds. Airlift to a trauma center occurred within an hour, and the pilot needed emergency surgery for a liver laceration, similar to a severe seat belt injury. Six weeks later the pilot is recovering well.

 

       Sometimes there is nothing you can do.  This report features extreme, unexpected turbulence, and injuries which may all have occurred in the air. I asked Rob McKenzie to comment on the concept of "the Rogue Thermal" .  He writes: "Maybe on days with little wind, if conditions are right there are very narrow fast moving updrafts that essentially do the work of much larger dusties and the combination of them being fairly rare and being small they aren't as easy to run into in the air (thank god) so we don't hear of them very much."  I guess you don’t necessarily have to go to outer space to find a black hole.

 

      Please keep reporting your accidents.  Only you can keep us from repeating them.

      

**********

       When my kids were young we used to read them a book called Rain Makes Applesauce.  Now looking out my window at this gray Oregon winter day I am forced to admit that in this house, rain makes accident reports. It also hones my desire to fly to an edge sharp enough to do damage.

       Following reports of mishaps around the world, one conclusion stands out .  The single most important cause of accidents is choosing to fly when one shouldn’t.  A few of us are naturally cautious and don’t try anything unless we’re certain it will work. But most of us pilots are more adventurous.  It doesn’t come naturally for us to shrink from the unknown. It is a balance we must study and learn.

      Flying is seductive and addictive.  We often call it a “fix” when we get some air time after prolonged bad weather.  Pilots at all levels of experience are vulnerable to this potentially lethal malady of over eagerness.   We need to maintain vigilance for dangerous states of mind, even as we watch for hazardous weather.  Whenever it’s been a long time; whenever we’ve traveled especially far, or the site is especially exciting, we are at higher risk.  Are other pilots around you reluctant to fly?  Force yourself to listen to them.  They are trying to help, not ruin your day.

 

      Autumn,  popular southern hang gliding site, mid  day:

 

        An eager beginner paraglider pilot  showed up at launch  alone,  encountering a group of experienced local hang pilots.  They discussed his plans with him.The site is 1500 AGL with a 5.5/1 glide to the LZ.  Three prior known paragliding flights have been done from here and on two of them the LZ was not reached.  the pilot had minimal  if any thermalling experience. The hang pilots advised him to wait until glass-off when the lift would be more consistent.  They then launched and thermalled to a few thousand over and prepared to go cross country.

       They observed the parapilot try several inflations, finally getting away from the hill. He flew through a thermal, getting about 100 feet over launch, then  hit the expected sink behind it. He lost altitude rapidly and was forced to try to land on a maintenance road lined with seventy foot trees, only five hundred feet below launch.  He lost control of his glider about twenty feet above the ground, either because of rotor, or tangling in a branch.  On impact , he broke his ankle, his wrist, and had multiple spinal fractures.  The hang pilots orchestrated a rescue.  

 

          This accident occasioned quite a bit of discussion at USHGA, and risked the loss of the site, at least for paragliding. The situation was complicated by the fact that the experienced pilots on launch were of the hang persuasion, and thus had some difficulty establishing rapport with the victim.  But it  goes without saying:  You ignore the advice of experienced local pilots at your own peril!  Rethink what you are doing.  Can you handle all the possible outcomes?

 

      Popular northwest mountain site, summer evening:

 

Experienced local pilot, trying out a new harness, aborted a launch and walked back up to try again.  On relaunching, he became immediately aware that he hadn’t  reattached his leg straps. He slid down and was hanging by his armpits in the risers.  He was unable to pull himself back up,  but still had the brake handles and managed to steer himself into the trees to the right of launch.  Unfortunately he ended up suspended thirty feet above the ground and  finally fell from his harness, sustaining  a vertebral fracture, a rib fracture, and facial injuries, in spite of his full face helmet.

 

        Paragliders don’t have the out of sight single carabiner hook in problem that hang gliders have but this scenario is probably the closest  thing to it.  It is more common when harnesses have front mounting reserves, since the straps can’t be seen, and one feels pressure on one’s lap.  This accident is most common after detaching one’s straps to walk back up.  It is often fatal.  Though distressing, our outcome here is close to ideal. 

        Much debate centers on the best reaction to this mishap and a way has been devised to climb back in one’s seat. But  European experiment s have shown that a large minority of normal people don’t have the arm strength for self rescue.  The current universal advice is to abort to the side, as this pilot did, and land sidehill as best you can. 

 

Here’s an analogous problem. Summer evening glass off, high desert:

 

       “In almost 5 years of paragliding I've done some pretty stupid things but last Thursday just about takes the cake. With 10 pilots present, I launched first, in fairly strong conditions, went up immediately to about 50 to 70' over launch, crossed the hill at least three times scratching for lift, then at about 150' over went back to the launch area, swooped a big "show off" kind of turn, straightened out, caught a big cycle in the face and started going backwards and up about 500 fpm. I decided I had better check out  my speed system hook up points and when I looked down just about had a heart attack. My right riser was "outside" the 'biner and only being held in place by about a quarter inch which was hooked between the gate and the outside point. That's pretty much the end of the exciting part of the story.

         I decided not to throw my reserve and I decided not to attempt to attach the riser properly while in flight.  What I didn't consider but should have was to weight the left side of my harness as much as possible without causing a turn to the left. I did keep my left hand at the ready in case the riser let go, in anticipation of the inevitable severe right spiral dive. How this "stupid" mistake happened doesn't really matter. We all make "stupid" mistakes and I've come to know that no matter how many little "rules" we make up for ourselves, we will find ways around them. “

 

       Almost enough said.  We can decrease but not eliminate the occasions on which we experience this much adrenalin.  Whenever you are in a hurry to launch, stop and take a couple of deep breaths. Then do your preflight.  Slower than usual.  Think of each little gizmo that’s supposed to be clipped to something else. One at a time. 

 

 

   Spring, thermal site:  This site tends to have a certain amount of turbulence at launch and can get gusty in the afternoon.  At the time of the accident the wind was reported as 6 to 12 mph somewhat cross. Relatively inexperienced pilot, third in a group, pulled his glider up and took off.   Immediately he experienced a full frontal collapse and he reported seeing his wing on the ground in front of him while he was still in the air.  He suffered a broken foot and numerous bruises.

 

    Similar accidents have occurred at this site.  The launch demands more expertise for safety than it looks like it does, because of the frequent turbulence.  Variable gustiness on the ground translates into a real rodeo in the air.  The pilot must time the launch correctly,  and be ready for anything.  It's critical to fly the glider away from the hill without taking ones hands off the brakes.  All of this underscores the value of local experience, and the importance of understanding ones own limits.

 

        One last  event of interest:

 

 

 

A P4 rated paragliding pilot crashed after doing a B-line stall on his DHV-2 rated glider, approximately 200 ft. over the side of hill.  The pilot was very familiar with the site, and was performing for his family, who were taking video. During the maneuver, he dropped about 100 ft. then released the B lines.  The glider seemed to recover, but actually entered  parachutage. The glider spun left without pilot input.  The pilot sensed loss of pressure and pulled down both brakes as he was spinning.  This seemed to stop the spin (at 180 degrees) but put him into a full stall.   The chute went back,  dropped fast, and the pilot immediately put  his hands up. The wing surged to slightly below horizontal and  pilot was face up, back to the ground, and free-falling.  He fell under the crumpled canopy and slammed into the side of the hill.   He

landed on his left back side and bounced about 10 feet, suffering cracked ribs and extensive bruises.  The pilot was able to walk down the hill, and was not hospitalized.

       This is a very experienced pilot who had attended a recent maneuvers clinic.  The family spectators were probably a factor clouding his judgment, but at least the videotape allowed minute dissection of the accident.  I found it very instructive that he himself noticed several sub optimal responses,  (not using the speed bar to recover the B line and recovering too slowly, and not controlling the full stall or the surge.)  This underscores how hard it is to recover dependably from a complicated malfunction close to the ground.  The obvious basic lesson is that even if we are good,  experienced and well trained we are still human.  We need time to recover from our mistakes.  We need to do maneuvers with a lot of ground clearance.  The modern gliders don’t recover from B lines as dependably as wings from the early 90's.

It is not a benign maneuver, and this pilot was very lucky to walk away.  The excellent passive safety features of his harness saved him a lot of grief.  And I very much appreciate his extremely detailed report.       

 

      Please report your accidents.  It’s cathartic.

 

**********

Another Fatality, and Some Good Luck

 

 

 Recently  a seventy-seven year old man flew in something  more dangerous than a paraglider (and  returned to a hero’s welcome.)  Space travel in the shuttle still has an order of magnitude higher death rate than our sport, hour for hour, if not mile for mile.

      Automobile travel is a little better. As a denominator I will use the registered vehicle.  Since many drivers share somewhat fewer cars, this will make the death rate look a little higher than it would if we calculated per licensed driver.  In the USA the death rate is about one per 5000 cars per year, roughly a fifth of the paragliding rate of one per thousand.   In Europe the statistics suggest that driving there is at least twice as dangerous, and in Africa it may be much safer to paraglide, actually.  The most dangerous country, Ethiopia, had a staggering rate of almost two percent of cars involved in a fatal accident per year. 

 

      Our data on experience level and fatalities remains a little frightening, however, even in comparison to Ethiopian driving. In the United States this year three of four deaths befell extremely seasoned tandem instructor pilots.  Here is the report of the fourth  one:

 

  9/98,  popular California beach site:

 

       Extremely experienced tandem instructor and tow instructor pilot with over 2500 hours of foot launched air time was flying in relatively light ridge lift in a 30 degrees crosswind of roughly 7 mph. His glider was rated DHV 2: he flew without back protection or reserve.parachute and was about twenty pounds under the lower limit of the placard.  The weak lift didn’t allow him to get more than thirty feet over the cliff top.  About one hundred fifty feet out from the cliff, he induced a series of porpoise maneuvers, on the last one allowing the canopy to come forward in a surge of roughly 90 degrees. This resulted in significant altitude loss, and a  frontal collapse, which evolved into a front horseshoe. He was rotated over 90 degrees and found himself facing the cliff just as the wing surged forward to start to fly again, causing high speed impact, and almost instant death.

        Hindsight is easy in this case.  The pilot induced very dangerous maneuvers in a fairly sporty wing, at significantly less than the minimum placarded loading, with no significant ground clearance in a crosswind with no back up safety equipment.  He was extremely experienced at this site and must have underestimated the risk. It’s instructive to think about how a person with this experience level can be so cavalier. Familiarity has its dangers. We need to help each other remember that none of us has inexhaustible luck.

 

There have been some other instructive accidents with less tragic results.

 

October,  complex mountain site in Oregon.

 

     A very experienced pilot with an older competition wing did a long hike-up to a summit where conditions are frequently too strong.  He had one pilot companion with him.  To save weight, he carried a descent style harness without back protection or reserve.  At launch the conditions were quite strong with gusts to close to twenty miles per hour. The LZ is by a large body of water however and whitecaps were occasionally barely noticeable.  A long stretch of water is visible upwind, so some warning of building conditions is possible.

     The two waited an hour and a half until near evening and the intensity of the wind decreased.  Both pilots launched and became the first pilots to ever soar this difficult and complex site.

       The approach to the LZ is complicated by a large hill upwind causing rotor and convergence in the lower altitudes, and a landing field which necessitates an uphill landing facing a line of trees which can also cause turbulence After about one half hour the victim-to-be thought he saw increasing wind on the water and worked to descend.

He spent a lot of time in ears and with the speed bar  in order to approach the LZ, but by two hundred feet AGL he was again flying the full wing at normal trim.. At perhaps thirty feet AGL he had a large surge, a frontal collapse, and landed hard, tried to get into a PLF position but fell backward and fractured his wrist.  The second pilot was luckier, finding smooth air where the ugly tree rotor had been moments earlier.

      Through the years this has frequently been a very educational site, but this is the first injury to occur there. Using minimalist equipment there is a questionable practice, especially with a high performance wing.  Being at such a difficult site in strong conditions, when walking back would be a major undertaking, made the opportunity to soar for the first time very difficult to turn down. Many landings had been made here before, but never in soaring conditions.   The strong wind in the LZ was predictable.  The bottom line is that a trip into the unknown adds to the risk.                         

        One final observation here. The injured pilot on the ground maintained he was fine until a day or so later. His companion only noted that he didn’t fold up his own glider.  Denial is strong.  It’s hard for all of us to accept our own injuries. It’s crucial for the uninjured party to critically appraise the victim, and be a bit skeptical of his protestations of integrity.

 

August, popular Cascade Mountain site

      A fairly new pilot was flying with many others at an organized event.The site is at 1500 foot AGL with a lot of thermal and also a lot of up valley wind and thus ridge lift. The launch is a rounded ridge perpendicular to the valley, and very inviting for top landings. Conditions were moderate. The victim decided to top land.  His approach pattern involved sharp S turns with a lot of brake. About 100 feet AGL he felt his wing go slack and he plummeted into a tree stump on the edge of the landable area, fracturing both of his ankles.There had been upwards of one hundred top landings that day in similar conditions, and quite a bit of instruction and tandem activity. 

        There has been a lot of discussion of the aerodynamics of this accident.  The pilot originally felt he was in a rotor.  Observers did not observe a rotor and suggest that he was turning too sharply and lost control close to the terrain.  For our purposes it isn’t critical, since the accident illustrates the dangers of both.  Top landing is an advanced skill, and it demands fairly specific conditions, a lot of care, some luck and complete willingness to go around, even at the risk of missing the opportunity altogether. It isn’t safe to force a top landing.  If conditions are too strong the top is unreachable through the abundant lift. If they are favorable one still needs to be quite exact in one’s approach through areas that could have turbulence, and one may be tempted to fly slowly and make sharp turns to optimize one’s spot landing ability.  These situations are inherently risky. 

 

Hawaii, August, ocean ridge soaring site:

        An intermediate pilot was soaring with several other people on a classic, very complex site. To fly to a road for pickup he flew in front of a sea cliff, expecting good lift, but  had misjudged wind direction and found himself sinking out  over the ocean. There were tide pools in reach where he had landed before but instead he chose to try to glide around a corner to another beach, which had never been tried. As he went around the cliffs, just 100 feet agl or so, he realized he was a long way from any landable terrain. He put the glider at best glide and headed for a pile of rocks to avoid the ocean. He crashed, downwind, just 4 feet from the surging waves, into 2 foot

diameter irregular basalt chunks, breaking both ankles. Extracting him from this area was difficult  and took the rest of te afternoon.

         This pilot was obviously in a terrifying situation and extremely lucky to escape with his life.  His position was hopeless as soon as he decided to run around the corner to the beach too far away. In flying you have to be sure you can do it before you try. Luck only works for some of us, some of the time. 

 

      The last three reports involved pilots taking risks to avoid having to walk back to the car. In hindsight, they would have been happy to walk.  Flying within reasonable limits of safety has allowed many of us to have sublime cross country flights all over the world. It is not necessary to live on the edge to have a wonderful time in the air.

 

     Please report your accidents!  The pilot you save may find a thermal for you some day.            

 

**********

 

 Spring, tropical thermal site.  Full on mid day conditions:

 

          45 year old beginner pilot with forty flights launched

his DHV1-2 glider from a popular site at roughly 2000 feet to fly to an LZ

well known by locals for its extremely active air.  An out of state visitor,

he had been introduced to the site the day before by helpful local pilots who

 had explained to him the roughness of the LZ. On the day of the accident

his family had driven him to launch after a local pilot let him through a locked gate, in order to fly alone. The entire site is in a large bowl in the lee of huge volcanoes, which block the prevailing wind and permit powerful lee side thermal activity. There are a few LZ choices in the bowl but they are all potential sources for  thermal release and it is common for local pilots on final approach at 100 feet AGL to suddenly encounter thermals capable of taking them to cloud base.

        The end of this pilot's flight was not observed.  He was found by

his family, very severely injured in the usual LZ.  His family helped him out

of his harness and were preparing to put him in the car to take him to the

 hospital when local pilots arrived. They suggested making him as

comfortable as possible on the ground and called an ambulance. Shortly thereafter the pilot stopped breathing and the local pilots continued CPR until the paramedics arrived.  The pilot was found to have severe internal injuries including aortic rupture, which would have precluded survival even had he had immediate surgical attention.

        The pilot was found with his wing laid out behind him without any

 riser twists.  He was a little downwind from the usual spot, suggesting  a

 stall or spin aborting the final approach. He had impacted on his side and

 his harness padding had not been of any use.  He did not deploy his

reserve. The harness had no damage, scratches, etc.

        The deceased was a commercial airline pilot and an all around

 adventurer; climber, and kayaker.

 

           On the one hand it is easy to urge all of us to check with local pilots prior to flying anywhere; there is simply no way to intuit the details of a site without their knowledge. However, it was a day on which locals were getting ready to fly and may only have warned this visitor to be careful of the turbulence.  Of course we have no way to know what actually happened.  It is clear that very active LZ's are best approached extremely vigilantly in active flying mode. Safety demands precision countering of all attitude changes. This relatively new flyer may have been coming in slow, as a fixed wing pilot might be inclined to do, or just not reacted optimally.

     The most important take home lesson may simply be that some

 sites are more difficult than they look.  The geography of the site is relatively benign looking to the untrained eye, but at mid day in May it is exceptionally active and merits enormous respect. It consists of small, leeward, down sloping lawns interspersed with fields of black lava rock baking in the hot sun. It would be no place in mid day for a low air time pilot.  

      Unfortunately, the only way for the beginner to find this out is to talk with the locals and for them to be forthright and sanguine. More careful new pilots often choose never to fly a new site except under supervision by a local instructor.  This site is rated P3.  It is difficult for hospitable locals to  warn visitors clearly enough while they are introducing a site, and hard to advise a P2 not to fly.  It can also be  hard for a beginning pilot to accept advice like that.  It all looks so different in retrospect.

 

Mid-day landings in strong thermal conditions are obviously serious business,

but serious injuries also result from mistakes while flying in benign

conditions as is the case in the next scenario:

 

Coastal ridge lift, light conditions:

 

A relatively experienced pilot was flying low along sand dunes in light

coastal ridge lift.  Only a few feet off the ground and

over sand he figured it would be safe to experiment with deeper brake application; so

he pulled down about 4 or 5 more inches and looked up. Everything looked

good.   Then he let it back up to normal and took a second wrap, and pulled

down to his shoulders with light pressure.

Still only about 5 feet off the surface of the dune & gliding along he

initiated a turn but now thinks he may have forgotten about the second wrap.

Because of the steepness of the dune, he went from 5 feet to about 30 feet

very quickly.  As he was turning he describes feeling that he was getting out of the lift band. He pulled down more on the right brake to

turn further, stalling the wing. He fell about twenty feet, sustaining vertebral fractures and a neck strain.

 

The pilot is fairly experienced and flying a DHV 1-2 wing. He considers himself

cautious.  Gliding along a sand dune in light lift can be a true joy

and certainly is not recognized as a high risk aspect of our sport, but

flying too slow contributes to several serious accidents each year.  Our

modern wings reach minimum sink well above stall speed so there is no

advantage to flying slow.  The loss of lift the pilot described may have

been partially due to flying too slowly and the impending stall.  The saying

goes: speed and altitude - always keep some extra in the bank.

 

Inland thermal site, moderate thermal conditions:

 

An experienced pilot had been flying for approximately 1 hour, in

moderate thermal conditions.  After several climbs to near cloud base he flew

out from the mountain for about 1 mile and returned on glide to the hill arriving

200-300' below the ridge top. Here he began to ridge soar on steep grassy

face making two passes before he was observed to have a very large and

aggressive front surge. The cause of this is unclear but usually results from a stall or deflation in the turbulence at the edge of a thermal.  The pilot appeared to be trying to regain control of a wing that looked inflated.  The pilot impacted the hillside on a rock outcropping while looking at the glider and obviously trying to make inputs.  Upon hitting the hill, he bounced and fell down to a ravine about 100' below the point of impact.  911 was

called immediately and air rescue/helicopter was requested. The pilot

regained consciousness within 5 minutes but was very disoriented. He described severe pain in the midsection of his body, mid/lower back and neck.  The rescue helicopter arrived within 15 minutes and he was airlifted to a trauma center.  Final medical report; concussion,  multiple vertebral fractures, pelvic fractures, cracked spleen, cracked liver.  Amazingly, this pilot walked out of the hospital after 7 days.

 

The impact was directly to the back protection and air bag or the injuries

could have been far worse.  The pilot was reportedly flying well that day

and had attended many maneuvers clinics and had never had a single mishap.

His glider was a new DHV 2 wing but he had made 10+ flights on the actual

glider.

 

Flying close to the hill and scratching in thermal conditions was absolutely

a factor.  The pilot does not remember anything about last 10 minutes of

flight and the cause of the initial surge and apparent stall are unclear.

It is also unknown if throwing his reserve was a viable option considering

the low altitude. From the description, it appears he may have held the

brakes too deep for too long during recovery from the front surge resulting

in a stall. Flying a relatively new wing could have contributed to the

misjudged recovery, but flying too close to the terrain to recover from

thermal turbulence is the obvious lesson.

 

The seriousness of the injuries described reminds us of just how serious

flying can be and how it becomes more difficult to ascertain just what

happened as the injuries become critical. While we may never know just what

happened, pilot induced stalls may have contributed to each of the

accidents.  Being aware of your wing’s airspeed is an essential piloting

skill and stalls continue to be a preventable contributor to injury

accidents.  Help keep others informed about safer flying by reporting your

accidents.

 

**********

Midsummer Reports

 

     Since our last report,five more fatalities and one disappearance have been reported to USHGA.  This brings the total in the US to 8 deaths this year so far, The highest total we have ever experienced..  It remains difficult to generalize from small numbers if there are common causes. We have full details on four of the fatal accidents, and will publish them here.  Two of these involve windspeeds higher than the pilots anticipated,  generalizations are diffiult about the remaining reports.

 

      Flat ground:  Chris Williams, a self-taught pilot with about three years of experience, was kiting his glider in a relatively strong wind. In order to keep from being blown back, he tied himself to a vehicle with a line about 55 feet long.  he was picked up in a gust. A companion grabbed his harness as this was happening to try to prevent him from being dragged up. They both went to an estimate height of twenty feet. The glider “spun around a couple of times”  and both people hit the ground with considerable force.  The unhelmetted companion was bruised and had extensive head lacerations.  The pilot who had a full face helmet suffered extensive head injuries and was rendered unconscious.  Both were rushed to a hospital, but because of the remote location, this took three hours. The pilot died two weeks later of his extensive intracranial injuries.

 

      Tethering in a soarable wind was a moderately common practice in the early days of paragliding and in the late eighties was even used for instruction. However, because of variable wind speeds, it produced an unacceptable number of very severe injuries and has been abandoned.  Currently we feel that tethering or static line towing is never appropriate. The lockout phenomenon is unpreventable without a proper training, smooth conditions, and a quicklink, none of which this pilot had.  The response of the bystander to grab the harness was understandable but  futile and extremely dangerous. 

 

Infrequently used desert site:  Charles Holden,  was a 41 year old novice pilot with five years of experience, but who only flew occasionally and had been rated only 1 year ago. Wind conditions at launch were reasonable but  approaching thunderstorms threatened worsening conditions.  At the time of the accident a local airport reported gusty winds of 15-20 mph and occasional lightening. A non-pilot witness reported that the flight went well until the pilot approached the LZ when the glider suddenly sank very rapidly. About 1/4 mile short of the LZ,  the pilot hit an apricot tree and an adobe wall before slamming into the ground. Strong winds dragged the glider andthe pliot’s head hit a sharp rock which penetrated his helmet and caused brain trauma. The pilot was found unconscious and breathing. Evacuation was within an hour but the pilot died from his head injuries on  the way to the hospital.

 

We have all been taught to stay out of the air when active thunderclouds are nearby.  It seems that many of us still need to learn this simple rule from experience.(I, for one, am guilty)  We can’t all be lucky enough to survive this lesson.

 

There were two disappearances. It has been well publicized that Scotty Marion failed to return from a long cross country flight in Switzerland. The other event is reported below:

 

        Desert site, Mid day. June 28.   An experienced XC pilot, 45 year old Ronald Rosepink disappeared after leaving his vehicle at an occasionally used isolated desert launch.  Air search was carried out for one week and no furhter information was acquired.  There is not enough data to comment on this mystery.  Perhaps it illustrates the value of letting someone know what one’s plans are, and the obvious risks related to flying alone. finally, there are  locator technologies that will become increasingly available in the next few years and cross country pilots would be well served to consider them as they are refined.

 

 

 

           There was also the following report:

        Desert site, mid day 100 degree heat;  Beginner  pilot with about 15 hours was seen soaring over a recognised site about 200 feet above the ground. A non-pilot observer noted that “1/2 of his wing collapsed” and remained closed all the way to the ground. the pilot suffered a broken neck and was dead when help arrived.  The glider was DHV 1 and was flight tested many times later. Many unilateral collapses were induced and there was always spontaneous reocvery.  There is strong circumstantial evidence that the pilot had been drinking alcohol, and it is known that he was under extreme stress.

 

    The remaining two fatalities will be described more completely when we have better detail available.

 

 

Here are a couple of non-fatal accidents, illustrating obvious errors:

 

      Coastal site mid day thermals:  A quite experienced pilot was ridge soaring in front of the hill when he thought a small thermal crossed his path. He initiated a 360 toward the hill to keep the lift. He popped out of the thermal and realized he didn’t have space to complete the turn. He raised his legs, leaned even more, and cranked mor brake to try to avoid the ground but  crashed on the hillside after about 200 degrees of turn.  He was immediately uncomfortable and driven to the ER but work up revealed no new fractures. (Instructively, the pilot did have two old spinal fractures)

 

     The lesson here seems straightforward. This pilot initiated his 360 by turning toward the hill. Never do this. When one shifts from ridge lift to thermalling, there is always a moment during one’s first 360, where one turns toward the hill, but the initiation of the turn must be outward.  If there is concern that the thermal is only close to the ridge, fly closer to  the ridge before starting the turn, or better, give up on that particular thermal.   Thermal conditions are by definition unpredictable enough that  one needs to allow a lot of ground clearance.

 

Desert site, mixed thermal and ridge lift.  Strong conditions had ameliorated and two pilots launched. One noticed virga and immediately landed. The other used the lift to gain about 800 feet of altitude, and began being blown back. He pulled big ears and descended to the top of the ridge drifting backward at 5 mph.  Touching down, he pumped out his wing, and was immediately dragged downhill, hitting embankments and repeatedly being pounded intothe ground. He made no effort to disable the wing.  He stopped roughly 300 feet downhill from his point of touchdown. Local pilots noted no major injuries, but many cuts and abrasions, as well as strong odor of alcohol.

 

     I’ve had two injury accidents in  my 12 years of flying. In both cases the ER checked my blood alcohol (zero).  Some are tempted to use alcohol or drugs to bend reality a little when they fly. This is extremely dangerous.  It is not legal. It jeopardizes our status under FAR 103.  PLEASE don’t do it.

 

       Mountain site, mid day.  Experienced pilot who’d had an extended time since his last flight experienced a very routine reverse inflation and left the ground after 1’2 steps. He didn’t release  the brakes but grabbed the risers to get into his seat. Immediately his wing had a full frontal deflation and  he stalled to the ground, suffering bruises to his thigh and abdomen.  First fly the glider.  It’s ok to dangle until you have reasonable ground clearance. We can all learn techniques to get into our seats without releasing the brakes, or worse yet, pulling them down as we reach for the seat. Using the newer stirrup - speed bar  setups can simplify this process.

 

       This has been a very painful year to be writing paragliding accident reports.  We can speculate about the increase in fatalities over the last couple of years.   We note that some victims are only occasional flyers. Statistical variation may be a part. But I wonder if we all need to rethink how slowly we fly when close to the ground.

       Pilot age may be a factor. I think that the average age of paraglider pilots is increasing, or at least we are developing an increasingly large group of very experienced pilots. The pilots who have died are often older. I did a little research into motor vehicle accidents and older passengers are much more likely to suffer fatal injuries than younger ones. We just don’t bounce as well.  That observation should lead us older pilots to buy more conservative gliders, to leave more margin for error, and  to reevaluate our own most adventurous goals. New trainees of a certain age should not expect to fly like some younger pilots can. For most of us there is a lot more to life than long XC flights.

 

     Though I find the number of fatalities sad and worrysome, I am buoyed by the efforts of may pilots to report their incidents to help others improve their safety. We really appreciate what you have done.

**********
Bad Wind Arising

 

      Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the twenty-fifth annual Starthistle Festival of Foot-Launched Flight in Ruch, Oregon.  It was a lovely gathering ranging from charter members of the Rogue Valley Hang Gliding Association to a bunch of bagwings from all over the area.   We had three wonderful days of strong thermals and beautiful glass off conditions, cross country flights and evening camaraderie.       

         Watching the LZ was always interesting.  A wide somewhat tilted field in the bottom a valley with strong afternoon thermal winds,  It was often strong in there and sometimes turbulent.  Pilots could count on a lot of variation in the air and lots of finesse was required.  But hundreds of landings occurred that weekend and no one was hurt. I was fascinated by the subtle balance and skills with which even less experienced pilots got themselves to the ground.

         Turbulence close to the ground is the Achilles Heel of our sport, and perhaps of all flight. Each year many accidents are reported where this is the main focus, and we can all learn to increase our margin of safety. Here are a variety of reports with a wide range of outcomes.  Experienced pilots and neophytes are represented. Some events are just after launch, some right before landing.

 

Mountain site, spring mid-day.

 

       A very advanced pilot flying a DHV 2 glider  was searching for lift just below launch in lee side thermal conditions.  He began to circle to the left when his glider seemed to fall back out of the thermal and begin a negative spin.  the pilot went hands up, a big surge ensued to asymmetric collapse. He was close to the ground, deployed his reserve and landed safely on his feet. Commentary: He may have been excessively deep in the brakes or not exercising enough weight shift when exiting the thermal which caused the negative spin.

 

Mountain LZ  mid day summer thermal conditions:

 

       A student pilot on a DHV 1 glider encountered a strong thermal 20 feet AGL on final approach.  He had a 50% right sided deflation and turned into the hill, impacting without a PLF.  He was conscious and had back pain; hospital evaluation showed cracked vertebrae without neurologic injury.

 

Coastal site,  light lift.

 

      Intermediate pilot on a DHV 2 was scratching for lift, deep in his brakes about 50 feet over a road on top of the hill.  He hit a gentle rotor from a small upwind obstruction, probably entered a negative spin and was turned 270 degrees into the hill. He impacted face first, the glider seemed to bounce, become airborne, and dive into the hill again.  The pilot was able to hobble to safety on a broken ankle.

 

High altitude mountain site, spring mid day:

 

     Intermediate pilot on a DHV 2 glider experienced a strong thermal close to the ground. He had a substantial pitch back, then surge to asymmetric deflation. He pulled a lot of brake and went into a negative spin.  At 150 feet the pilot deployed his reserve parachute but got his foot caught in a couple of lines.  He crashed into a snowbank with a partially inflated reserve and was uninjured.

 

Same site, late spring, mid-day

 

     Experienced pilot on a DHV 2 glider in relatively light conditions, pilot tried to milk light lift from small, broken up thermals in a crosswind close to the ground, trying to turn in each one. Finally, deep in his brakes, he hit a some rapidly rising air, which pitched the glider back. The recovering surge caused an asymmetric deflation, and the reinflation turned him toward the trees.  Overcorrecting caused negative spin and  a tree landing, resulting in a shoulder strain.

 

Summer, dry land, mid day thermals:

 

         Very advanced pilot launches on a competition wing as part of a gaggle, intent on  a long cross country flight.  He stepped into a good cycle, got set up in his harness, looked right to make a turn and had a sudden 80% deflation on the left.  The wing rotated and dived into the hill.  The pilot slammed on the right brake at 60 feet agl and was able to get into a deep (parachutal) stall mode.  He was concerned about preventing a pendulum into the hill.  He fell vertically and crashed into a paved road.  He sustained fractures of multiple vertebrae, pelvis, and tibia, as well as lacerated organs, and spent a few days in intensive care, three straight days in surgery, and eight weeks total in the hospital.

 

        All of these accidents involve collapses too close to the ground for reliable recovery or reserve use.  In each case, the most important opportunity for decreasing risk lay in preventing the deflation. After the initial event, the cascade to crash is so fast that the pilot’s ability to control the situation is severely compromised.  It is ironic that of the two stories in which the collapse was least preventable, one involved a student pilot and the other, a tandem master.

 

        There are several general things one can do to make closures less likely. 

         1.  Fly a stable wing.

         2.  Don’t try air that is beyond your skills.

         3. Fly fast enough.  The more turbulent the air, the more important it is to get up to speed as soon as possible, and stay that way.  Scratching deep in your brakes may occasionally be safe enough in light, steady air, but has absolutely no place in situations with any potential for turbulence.  The closer you are to the ground, and somewhat paradoxically, the tighter you are turning, the more important it is to optimize your airspeed.

         4.  Practice active piloting.  This can not be emphasized enough.   Timing is everything.  Constantly feel the glider as it pitches forward and back, constantly adding and subtracting brake while remaining calm and relaxed in order to dampen but not eliminate these motions. The optimal timing and the size and duration of brake inputs  are learned skills.   These skills are very subtle, can not be explained easily, and require assiduous practice. They can be learned wrong.  Ask for help from instructors.

         5. Do your best to anticipate turbulence.  Rotor from obstacles and wing wake are easier to anticipate, but its sometimes possible to intuit  thermal releases. Practice awareness of this and the subtle feelings and noises involved.  Listen to other pilots in the air and on the ground, and watch their wings as they launch and land.

         6. Pay special attention. Launches and landings can require extraordinary concentration.  You won’t know which ones do until it’s too late.  Get centered.  Paragliding is usually sedate but occasionally things may suddenly happen very fast.

 

        The response to the online reporting form has been voluminous and gratifying.  Thank you all for your conscientious participation. I want to remind all of you that I will not publish critique of instructors or glider engineering in this column, but problems will be referred to the appropriate forum in USHGA.  We very much need all of your reports, even if I don’t publish them here.    

 

        A final sweet note: After his discharge from the hospital, the pilot in the last report wrote the following at the end of his story:

 

          “My time in hospital has been one large learning curve and being stuck in

bed so long affords plenty of time for solid introspection and soul building. I don't intend doing this again, but then I guess it's not the worst thing that's ever happened either.

 

Whichever way you choose to chill or play, make sure you have a good

medical policy or hospital plan.

 

If it does go wrong, let yourself go and be surprised by the resources

you will come to discover within yourself.

 

Enjoy life out on the edge, because the wide bits are too crowded (and

boring)!"

 

 

**********

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 05:59:00 -1000

From: Hoffman Douglas A

To: 'Peter Reagan'

Subject: article

 

The Big Wingoverr

                 r

                  r

                   r

                   r

        You wouldn't catch me doing that!  You must be crazy!   Are you

insane?!  That sounds dangerous.  Aren't you afraid of dying?  What does

your wife think?  Why don't you think about your family?  These are all

things that acquaintances have said to me0.  We

all recognize the "risks" involved when we hook in and I'm sure all of us

have decided not to fly at some point for one reason or another.  Other

pilots may have already been in the air but it just wasn't your day and you

hiked down.  I'm not sure what you call it but I learned the term risk

management from a guy named Keith Code.  Keith is a ex-pro road racer and

now runs a motorcycle racing school in California.  He wrote several books

and was very influential in my racing style and approach to learning to

race.  By risk management he meant, "Understand the risks involved and then

choose which ones are worth taking and which are not."  For example when

practicing heavy braking, don't do it into a corner where the runoff is

short or nonexistent. Do it in a corner where if you misjudge, you can

straighten up and have plenty of runoff or slide safely to a stop.  I have

taken these lessons to heart and feel they are useful in daily life and

paragliding. There are appropriate times and places to take risks and there

are inappropriate ones. We don't manage risk effectively by

always avoiding it. We must embrace it to understand it so we can minimize it.

Along this line of reasoning there is no safer place to do maneuvers than

high over water.  I do not practice big wingovers, heavy spiral dives,

b-line stalls, etc. over land.  This was the first time I needed the water

and I was glad it was there.

 

         The evening of May 22:  We arrive on launch at 615 to find a strong

warm 24-31 kph breeze slowly cycling. As we cool off from the hike Dez sets

up his glider and we talk about going XC. We leave my radio with his

girlfriend, Meggie, and he hooks in.  We decide to stay together and if one

bombs out the other would land as well.  Dez's wing is in the rotor, which

is the case below about five feet on strong days.  Meggie holds the wing up

and it's barely in the air stream.  With my assist, he does a running

reverse and we are dragged back 5 to 10 feet before the wing is above him

and flying, which is typical at this site.

 

       Now it's my turn. I lay out my wing, a SOL Onyx 128, a bit further

back than Dez did so I can do a no kidding running reverse to get the wing

up into the air.  It comes up to about 45 degrees when it catches the wind.

The launch is loose gravel and provides the expected amount of traction,

none. I work the wing, trying to get it overhead but am losing ground.  At

the back of the launch the gravel turns to knee high grass and low shrubs

and I pull the wing, now at ~70 degrees, down. Meggie helps me set up again.

This time I am lifted up a foot or so and swing under the glider. Stuffing

the brakes I touch down and turn about 30 feet back from the edge.The wing

is overhead and flying nicely. The wing lifts me about a foot off the deck

and is making slow forward progress, 2 mph or so.

 

        As I cross the edge I get on the speed bar and float out over the

beach. I settle back in the harness and savor the smooth strong lift.  After

a few minutes we are easily 500 over the front face at Makapuu at dusk,

enjoying the feel of the air and the coolness that comes with altitude. I

join Dez at cloud base and water droplets are forming on my leg hairs as the

cloud grows and flows over the back of the range.  It always entrances me to

watch a cloud form on the ridge. Its continuously flowing over the back but

starts in the same place in a continuous wave; the magic of the sky.  We fly

out in front of the cloud wingtip to wingtip talking about the evening and

decide against the XC.  Dez heads off toward the lighthouse and I head out

over the water to "lose some altitude".  Now low I can see him over launch

playing and watching Meggie walk back to the truck.  After getting some

altitude I'm back over the water playing, working on unstable spirals,

starting smaller, then building them in steps.  Major altitude loss and

major speed!!

     

            It's approaching sunset and I'm ready to go land after a great

flight and wonderful day. I've been studying and experimenting with the

mechanics of doing loops and big wingovers and am tempted to finish the day

with that last big rush.  My mind runs back over the last couple of months

putting things in there place knowing I have the understanding to

pull it off. I'm now between 1500 and 1800 feet and about a 400-500 yards

off the beach and the right toggle comes down to below the seat.

     

            I watch the right wing slow, loosen up and start to dive. As I

pendulum out from under the wing and the speed increases I let the brake up

and allow myself to swing back under the wing.  Then hard on the brake

again.  When I apex I let the brake off and swing back through the point I

would be in a stable spiral.  When I stop swinging at the inner apex I bury

the brake.  The speed at this point is awesome and the brake pressure is

heavy.The wing dives below me and I start with lots of positive g's but am

still swinging toward the apex, so the g's are still building.  When I feel

the g's stop building, I'm pendulumed to the max. and I reverse the spiral

with a huge weight shift and opposite brake. I swing below the glider as it

is diving to the left and then I am swinging over the wing.

 

      The wing is now below me but I never have the sensation that I'm

loosing g's until I look up, straight down actually, and see my glider

against the ocean. The glider is looking good at first, but it then takes a

big frontal.  Strange, I don't remember the feeling of falling but I do

remember the trailing edge rushing up at me. The trailing edge hits me in

the chest: I catch the trailing edge with one hand and push it past my

waist, and immediately fall out of the glider.  My boot catches a line and

there is a tug then a pop as the line breaks.  The glider is now a thrashing

ball above me and my feet are still above my head. It becomes obvious that

it will not sort itself out. I look at the glider, then the water, and then

the beach. It occurs to me that I'm not falling that fast. I remember

distinctly thinking should I wait until I'm a little lower to throw my

reserve. The glider is above me and must be parachutal because I'm

descending directly below it.

 

      Then my mind does a reality check and throws reserve automatically

as if I've done it a hundred times before. I guess all those handle checks

and the reserve clinic really paid off. As the bag and bridle go by I reach

out instinctively and start pulling it back in. I never waited to see if the

reserve was going to come out of the bag.  When I see the shock yellow

reserve start to unfurl I let the bridle go and grab my shoulder straps.  I

hear the Velcro that holds the bridle to my Apco harness rip off and I am

under the reserve.

       

            At this point I remember watching the people on the beach and

imagine their shock; all heads turned up to see what is falling out of

the sky.  My wing drifts down wind of me and starts pulling. I start

pulling back, then realize I am going in the water, like I planned I

guess, so I let it go to start unbuckling.  When my feet are about to

touch the water I jump free of the rig and feel the warm Pacific surround

me. I enter the water very softly, my head barely going under water, and

there is no problem swimming free. It seems my fleece, boots and helmet

float quite well.  I don't have any trouble swimming the 50 or so yards to

the beach.  I decide to undress to recover my gear.  I

notice the glider looks like a giant blue beach mat, the harness has a

foam/air back protector and is floating face down. This gave me a

chilling thought. I would be floating face down too if I were still

strapped in.  I strip to my shorts and swim back out the rig to recover

what I can.  I am assisted by two nearby swimmers.  We load the rig into

the truck, and head home. The ride was quiet without much small talk. 

When I arrive home dressed only in shorts, my wife knows something went

wrong. I describe my adventure and she gives me the, "You will never

learn, will you!" look. I spend  the evening removing the lines from the

glider and washing it. I finish at almost midnight and go to bed;  the

end to another day in the life of Doug.

 

            In retrospect I am reminded that we often learn our most valuable lessons from our failures.  Like buzzards over a dying animal, some friends talk of banning me from flying circles, but  I wonder what have I learned?  Did I manage the risks well that evening?  Lets see:

1. Over water, good; 2. Didn't get gift wrapped, good; 3. Did hit the glider,

bad; 4. Would have hit the water if wrapped, good; 5. No boat, bad; 6.

Reserve ride ended in water, good; 7. No surf, good; 8. No Fire Rescue,

good; 9. Didn't make it, bad; 10. Alive, very good.  I am alive and

uninjured but that is not the limit of the risk I took.  To go back to the

racing analogy, would you practice heavy braking in a crowd where it could

affect those around you if you weren't quite the rider you thought you were?

 

What risks did you take to fly today?

 

 

       Ed. Note: All aerobatic maneuvers raise the ante considerably,

even over water. In our local area the only pilot ever to fall into her

glider cometed into the water and broke her neck on impact. Luckily a

boat was immediately available. 

      To some pilots, aerobatic  flying may be worth the increased risk.

Please remember Chris Santacroce’s admonition to LEARN SLOWLY.  Don't

forget that the very edges of the envelope are only for ideal conditions,

excellent pilots, and precisely compatible equipment.  Very few of us can

ever afford to go there. We underestimate the  devastation that our own

severe injury or death can wreak upon our loved ones.  Access to sites

can also be adversely affected.

*********
Criticism

 

I'm fascinated with the reactions we all have when another pilot has an accident.  As a group we are personally very supportive to the victim, but there is always a certain amount of anger mixed in.  There is certainly a degree of it in my column. Where does this vindictiveness come from?  

         There are several aspects of this and some are more subtle than others. Most obvious is that other pilots in the area need to stop having fun and help the victim. We also worry that accident at a site will adversely affect our access to it, and that accidents in our sport prove to our friends and neighbors that we are nuts and  to our loved ones that it isn't safe to love us.

        But only somewhat less apparent is that  we personally resent the implication

 that paragliding is dangerous.  We are forced to justify continuing to fly when a friend is badly hurt and we don't want to have to consider the risks..

       Finally and I think most important, we have joined a society with it's own moral code.  All societies that are worth anything have a moral code.  Ours is a little strange maybe, because it includes such concepts as "Never fly into a rotor,"  and "Don't ever let go of the brakes!"  Rules like this protect us from many accidents but almost by definition an accident victim has broken a rule, if only because one of the rules is, "Don't have accidents!"  Accident victims are always ashamed, and groups chastise members that have broken rules.

         I also believe that this vindictiveness in ourselves impedes us from making real progress in helping other pilots mature in their judgment.  Blame assignment does not improve healing, nor does it foster learning.  It actually makes it harder for us to accept our own responsibility.   So who are the latest sinners in our midst???

 

        Very popular beach site, strong, flyable conditions:

 

         Experienced visiting pilot comes to the site for the first time and sits on the ground watching launches and landings.  He makes inquiries of the locals about landing protocol.  After a half hour or so he prepares his almost brand new DHV 2 glider and launches for a delightful two hour flight.  He decides to try to top land near a restroom facility.  He flies deep behind the lift zone and turns to fly back out toward the beach cliff at sixty feet. He momentarily drops his right brake to adjust his microphone. He hits turbulence and immediately has a deflation of 85% of his wing, according to several observers.  Two very quick spiral rotations occur and he hits the ground hard sustaining multiple axial skeletal injuries without neurologic sequelae. Less than four seconds elapse from deflation to impact.

         During his flight the wind had gradually shifted to a more northerly flow, more parallel to the cliff front, so more wind but less lift.  Many pilots began setting up to top land.  The victim came in high from the upwind side of the LZ on a path he'd seen many other pilots take previously when the wind was more straight in.  Unfortunately, in a crosswind this flight path coincides with the rotor zone from a sizable gully in the cliff front.  Many prior mishaps have occurred here. Locals and instructors all knew this was an area to avoid during northerly flow. 

         This simple scenario actually raises several critical issues.  First and foremost is respect for the ocean ridge lift site.  Most of us learn how to ridge soar before we learn to thermal, and staying up in the former seems relatively simple.  We don't appreciate how much of our safety is predicated on our surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the quirks of our own local areas, as opposed to our ability to appreciate hazards at an unfamiliar site.  We need to ask a lot of questions, and also think carefully about  possible rotor turbulence from various obstacles.  It goes without saying that anywhere near a potentially turbulent zone is a particularly bad place to let go of a brake toggle, and this may well have affected the outcome. I will add that in the US by far and away the most numbers of accidents occur on smooth, coastal, non thermal sites.

       Second,  In ridge lift a rotor is much more likely to matter than in a thermal situation.  Under thermal conditions the wind isn't as strong, and the air is going up, not sending the rotor sprawling out behind an obstacle.  Laminar air doesn’t have the internal give to absorb the energy of a rotor like thermally air does,  So they don’t damp out as fast.

       Third, It would have been advantageous to have a way to communicate with the pilot in the air, to wave him off the danger.  In this case I’m not convinced anything could have been done, but it is tantalizing when multiple bystanders watch what they know is an accident about to happen..

        Finally , this particular glider is rated DHV 2 but has a very high aspect ratio for that class.  It would be expected to deflate more readily and recover more slowly than a somewhat wider wing. 

 

Same site, a few days earlier, light soaring conditions:

 

        Extremely experienced, master rated pilot practices death spirals. keeps banked up for one last 360, slides in on his butt at high velocity, causing a non displaced tibial plateau fracture and moderate harness damage.

 

        Aerobatics is rapidly becoming extremely popular, especially at coastal laminar sites with big lift zones.  To match this trend there are an increasing number of accidents involving minor misjudgments.  These are occurring among extremely seasoned pilots.  Aerobatics are fun and certainly allow one to hone one’s skills to a razor edge.  But  they also increase the risk.  If you don't want to get hurt, learn maneuvers very slowly and methodically.  Hold yourself back.  And leave yourself space.  No one can be exactly precise every time.

 

Beach site, no wind at launch or LZ:

 

    Inexperienced, unschooled, relatively elderly pilot hiked up to the 1600 ft. launch from the beach.  Two other pilots happened to be on site. They discussed alternative landing possibilities with him, and helped when requested to hold his wing.  He did a running reverse inflation, turned and launched cleanly but with no brake input.   they watched his sled ride to a landing zone on a paved road. From high up they noticed he was not getting up after his landing. By the time they had flown down, a crowd had gathered and an ambulance had been called.  He had broken his leg.

 

      There are many obvious ways in which this individual broke our moral code.  On the face of it, he probably had a sub-optimal flare and landed hot, was unable to keep his balance and fell.  An important contributing cause is almost certainly lack of training.  But at least two other factors should be mentioned. Though the pilot could choose some grass or a beach to land on, he chose hard pavement. Either of the other options would have been more forgiving.  Finally, at the point of ground contact, an individual’s ability to avoid injury depends on several factors, including age,  weight, muscular strength, agility, bone density, skill, and protective equipment.  We each come with unique physical parameters outside of which we have a high risk of breakage.  It takes  honesty and maturity to allow for our own limitations. A twenty year old  soccer player is much less likely to get hurt in the same event as an older, more sedentary person.  Think about the margin you like to fly with. 

         Thanks to all who have come forward with their near misses and accidents.  And lets be charitable toward the victims in our midst. They are learning a lot  right now, and have quite a bit to teach as well..

 

**********

         I’d only been flying about a year back in 1992 but my friends and I were exploring sites all over the Northwest for the first time. One of the most exciting was Silver Star,  an alpine site at timberline in the Cascades. Launch was a sloping meadow with scrub trees and rock ledges, tucked between more crags and boulder slopes.  I hadn’t learned to thermal yet but was having fun using ridge lift. One pass I was fairly far out from the ridge and I was afraid I might fall out of the lift if I turned out. So I turned toward the ridge.  By the time I was facing the hill I knew I was in big trouble. I cranked the sharpest turn I’d ever tried.  It was not quite enough. My left foot hit a crag.  Involuntarily I flipped forward and did a swan dive across thirty feet of boulders, my nose suspended inches from the rocks by my valiantly flying wing.  At the far side a scrub spruce grabbed and broke some lines and flung me into the bushes.  My left foot hurt.

         I’ve been thinking about this experience more since the first fatality of the year has been reported, from Marshall,  San Bernardino, California.  His mistake was quite a bit more subtle than mine.  Eric Lowhar, a competent, conservative, novice pilot, launched his intermediate glider from Marshall in mellow soaring conditions, failed to maintain altitude and decided to make the crossing to Cloud Peak.  He followed the terrain closely, which entailed flying into a wind sheltered area at one point.  There he had an asymmetric deflation at about 150 feet AGL, lost control of the glider and hit the ground. No one saw  what happened after the deflation and it is not known what attempts he made to recover. His reserve was not deployed.  He impacted a steep rough rocky area.  He was noted to be motionless and immediate efforts were made to reach him.  90 minutes later he was found dead at the scene, with head and facial injuries. 

       This very unfortunate cascade of events involved pilot errors that were rather understandable for the newer pilot, and rarely have such dreadful consequences.  Lee slopes can be counted on for turbulence, but who among us hasn’t learned that the hard way.  It is possible the pilot was flying too slow.  Maybe a pilot with more skill could have recovered the wing. Perhaps it would have worked to throw the reserve. Finally the impact in the rocks was truly bad luck.  But only inches worse than my luck on Silver Star several years ago.  He died. I write about it.

 

Here are a couple more crashes involving faulty flight plans, but luckier pilots:

 

 Ocean site,  fairly strong conditions late in the day:  Experienced pilot on a DHV 2 wing, ballasted to the top of the weight range was flying with marginal penetration for the previous 1&1/2 hours, getting more altitude at the site than he was used to. He flew back to a spot behind the ridge and found himself unable to penetrate.  He used the speed bar but couldn’t get back to the ridge line.  Approaching a parking lot a car drove under him and he swerved to avoid it, experienced turbulence and a 50% collapse.  he maintained his direction but  now in a rotor and loading only half his wing he accelerated into the ground, hitting a guardrail and breaking his leg.   

 

Similar site: Experienced pilot with a DHV 2 glider flying the slow beat on a ridge was very deep in his brakes trying to minimize sink.  he experienced a large collapse , rotated and hit the hill face first.  He bounced off, the wing dived and he hit the hill again, breaking his ankle.

       The air is not dangerous, my friends. But that ground....... Make a good flight plan.  Fly fast enough.  It makes a big difference.

 

Here’s a counterpoint to the previous report; an example of a situation in which the pilot flew too fast instead of too slow..

 

Mountain site, windy conditions:

 

     Novice pilot launched A DHV 2 glider in rather windy conditions.  He had not set up the speed bar. Launch was followed by an altitude gain of 200 to 400 feet and the pilot was able to park over the ridge.  He  noticed turbulence and actually experienced a minor collapse. Penetration was a problem and he let out the trim about half way.  After forty-five minutes the wind speed and turbulence increased and he decided to fly out and land.  He let out the trim all they way  and proceeded to the downwind side of a very large LZ to try to avoid mechanical chop in the air.  At about 50 feet he experienced a 50%deflation on the left.  He reports weight shifting to the right and applying right break but the glider made a quick spiral to the left to the ground.   He had a helicopter medivac, and his injuries were not clearly described in the report.  As he lay in the LZ he noted consistently gusty conditions in the LZ.

 

      First, this pilot was flying a rather advanced glider for his limited experience. This is clearly a flight taken in marginal conditions at best. We do not have information about whether more experienced pilots were present or flying.  By the time trim was needed to keep ahead of the ridge it was clearly unsafe to remain in the air.

       Many gliders were delivered with trim tabs, but very, very few are DHV or AFNOR certified that way. If your glider has trim tabs, you need to be aware that when they are let out you are flying an experimental wing. Trim tabs are now less common than before effective speed bars were developed. They accomplish the same result as a speed bar but are much more clumsy to apply and release.  In general it is dangerous to fly a glider in an accelerated mode near the ground. Any turbulence is much more likely to result in an uncontrollable situation because at a high attack angle the leading edge is closer to the point of turning under and a collapse will happen more violently.  If one needs speed bar or trim to get to the LZ it is very important to get back to normal trim with sufficient altitude, usually felt to be a few hundred feet, so that a malfunction can be controlled.  This can take some advance planning in a high wind.  This accident shows that I need to clarify  the classic mantra. To whit: Normal trim speed is your friend. 

       We are getting more reports now.  To all of you that are sending in your new found wisdom; thank you from the entire paragliding community. Anyone else out there; we eagerly await your write-ups.     

 

**********

December Reports

 

         Launching is optional.  Landing is obligatory.   We’ve had several reports of landing mishaps recently.  They have no common thread, but contain several object lessons.

 

     Spring,  high desert,  gentle ridge lift:

 

     Master rated tandem instructor launches with a passenger on a 25 degree clean slope in a 7 mph wind. the passenger stumbled on takeoff but was able to recover with some assistance and the launch went fine. After a couple of passes it was time to land. The LZ is a broad,flat field with short grass and no obstacles. There was a six mph headwind, and a well timed flare led to a very gentle landing. the passenger fell and hyperflexed his knee,  and lay moaning on the ground. With help he was able to get into a vehicle and was driven home.  The passenger was a sixty-four year old overweight, diabetic, non-athletic man with two artificial knee joints who badly wanted to fly.  His condition improved over the next several days and he was soon walking normally. He did not seek medical evaluation beyond an informal check by his personal physician (the pilot).

        How do you decide who is capable of being a safe foot-landed passenger?   In fact, how does one decide if one could learn to fly safely.  After this incident I had a few thoughts about evaluating prospective candidates before they become obliged to land.They need to be able to run on somewhat uneven ground, and they need to be able to jump down.  I watch my passengers run, and I ask them to consider jumping from a 2.5 foot height.  If they are unsure, I ask if they could jump off their bed comfortably.

 

Spot Landing Accident    High Desert

 

 Advanced pilot on DHV 2 glider trying to hit the spot in a spot landing contest. landed on wet grass in front of the spot. He slid on the grass catching his foot on one of the stakes holding the spot down.  He tripped and sprained his ankle.

       Spot landings have inherent dangers because pilots will try to land too fast or too slow, they will try to turn too close to the ground; they may land in ears, and they may try to keep their feet up too long.  Spot landings are fun to practice, and it is good to be able to do them pretty well, but each one is a balance between accuracy and an acceptable level of risk. The pilot must always be willing to give up the prize; it’s rarely big enough to cover a sprained ankle. In light of the inherent danger it is logical to make the spot itself as safe as possible. Don’t use cloth to mark the spot.  Pound anchor stakes all the way in.Better yet, mark with lime.

 

Top Landing accident, summer conditions, mountain site:

 

       Fifty year old intermediate pilot was making a top landing approach to the back of a ridge.  The ridge top is complex with patches of trees, and the typical conditions include a mixture of light ridge lift and fairly strong thermal activity.  The pilot approached in big ears.  He started to try to open the glider but then he suddenly seemed to lose altitude and pendulum to the right.  His return swing caused him to impact on his left hip, fracturing vertebrae and requiring helicopter transport and eventual surgery.  He is neurologically intact.

        This is an area  where top landings have become extremely commonplace but this is the second serious top landing accident.   Top landings are very complex and  not easy to do safely. They often involve transitioning from rather strong ridge lift to fairly still air right above the ground.  This increases the chances for a stall  at an altitude where recovery is impossible.   It is therefore important to approach  with a fair amount of speed, with the glider extended, and not to make major turns near the ground.  These practices may decrease the chances of a successful top landing, but they will very much increase the likelihood of driving home in one’s own car. Unlike all other landings, top landings are OPTIONAL.  Exercise your option.

 

Side hill landing, morning in the desert.

 

       Novice pilot  crabbing along a ridge intending to side hill,  was still in his seat as he approached the terrain.  Unexpected sink put him on the slope before he could get his legs all the way down, and he landed awkwardly on his uphill leg causing knee and ankle sprains.

       Be ready for anything.  If you are near the ground, stand up.  Side hill flaring is a fine art. You have to be very careful to flare in a way that keeps you near the slope, which often involves some asymmetry in brake use, and heading adjustments depending on thermal wind changes.  Be ready to turn away from the ridge instantly if you hit sink.

 

Mountain site, midday

 

       Intermediate pilot on a DHV 2 wing  on an organized flying trip was soaring for an hour or so in mixed ridge and thermal lift. A primary LZ with windsock was set up but he decided to land in an alternate field he thought might be closer to the car.  There was no sock there, and the field was terraced.  close to the ground he realized he was coming in fast and headed for a low dirt wall between terraces. He tried to swing himself up over the wall as he flared but was unsuccessful, fracturing a vertebra, and leading to extensive surgery.

           Of course you try to prevent landing downwind.  Without a windsock you search for clues; what the grass is doing, local smoke,  leaves on trees,  any indication from birds or pilots or any water surfaces. Otherwise you need to do your best to judge from your own ground speed as you cross the field in various directions.

          But sometimes, despite your best efforts, you end up landing the wrong way.  Try to notice it as high as possible. If it is safe, modify your course to make it a more cross wind approach  Plan ahead  to avoid obstacles because you will hit harder than you are accustomed.  Come in smoking hot and flare relatively high and hard; take wraps.   It is probably best to try to run the landing out. Even a few steps will absorb considerable energy before you have to face the music.  A plf is designed very well to damp the impact from a vertical fall, it is much less useful when you are skimming fast, and runs the risk of actually intensifying the impact. The exception may be when you are hitting something head on. In that case flare about 15 feet in front of it and plf against the obstacle itself.

 

      High Desert at noon, thermally LZ

 

        An experienced pilot approaches on a DHV 2-3 wing, expecting  an “interesting” landing.  He was popped up 40 feet near the ground and took two extra turns to burn off the altitude.  He landed fast on his feet, but stumbled and fell hard, breaking his outstretched wrist.

         I’m not sure that this accident was preventable.  The pilot had correctly assessed the risk and was trying to cope with it. When one is forced to take tight turns near the ground  under thermally conditions, a lot must be left to chance.  The only way out of that situation would have been to not get in it. The pilot himself commented that he should perhaps have done a plf, but in light of the previous discussion, I doubt that would have improved the outcome.

       Many happy landings!  And keep letting us know about the unhappy ones.  We all have more to learn about this wondrous pastime.             

 

**********

December Thoughts

 

        Two years ago many of our most serious accidents involved very experienced pilots on high performance wings.  This last year  most of the reports are of much more commonplace problems faced by the average recreational pilot.  Today however I would like to report two unusual incidents befalling very mature  pilots with excellent safety records.  Like Daedalus and Icarus, we all have something to learn as we reach to increase the range of our flying envelope.

      

       Summer, High Desert:

 

       Master rated tandem instructor set off on a cross country flight from a launch at about 6300 feet. The day dawned partly cloudy, possible thunderstorms were in the forecast. He thermalled to ten thousand feet  under a large cloud and then flew out and tried to stay near the highway.  After ten miles he was at about 6500 feet. He again encountered lift and  thermalled up with an overdeveloping cloud behind him. Tall, dark clouds were visible around him but no thunder had been heard.  Reaching 9000 feet he realized he would have to fly through the corner of a cloud to get back out over the highway. He had been in the air over two hours and was cold. He entered the cloud and held his GPS course toward the highway, but the lift intensified. It started snowing. He pulled big ears and engaged his speed bar but his climb rate continued to increase. Snow was building up on him and in the cells of his glider. His hands were numb. After fifteen minutes in  “the white blizzard room”  he pulled off his sunglasses and looked at his vario, noting that he was above fifteen thousand feet.  He saw lightning and heard thunder nearby.

       He was very worried about using a B line stall because he was potentially disoriented, and his arms were so numb that he was afraid he might lose control and fall into the wing. But he decided it was his best choice.  He could only hold the configuration for several seconds at a time because his arms got so tired.  He considered hooking his speed bar to his B-lines, but could not get his frozen fingers to work. To his relief, he began to lose altitude. He eventually dropped out of the cloud, landed in a small canyon near the road, and hitchhiked back to the flying site.  By history there was significant hypothermia, but no injuries requiring treatment.  

         He had made one very frightened radio broadcast from inside the cloud and then his battery died. Many pilots were concerned and began to orchestrate a search. 911 was contacted, and later called off. 

         Cumulonimbus clouds are known to be very dangerous.  It is unclear how often foot launched pilots have actually been killed in these clouds and there are stories both of remarkable survival, and of swift fatality.  It is hard to know how desperate the situation actually is, and how desperately one should respond.  One observer on the ground radioed the suggestion to cut the lines and deploy the reserve after falling out of the cloud. (This extreme choice would have a very high risk of equipment failure, as our reserves are not designed to open at terminal velocity)  I suspect that the B-line was a reasonable, relatively conservative and effective response.  These clouds were not large, as thunderheads go; probably not much over 20,000 feet.  A more ferocious storm might well have called for more radical action. Incidentally, B-line stalls are notoriously difficult to hold for long periods of time. It’s almost as demanding as a continuous chin-up.

         Our experiences in thunderheads are thankfully not very common.  We have all learned that  FAR 103 requires staying 500 feet below clouds, as well as a thousand feet laterally from them. These rules are often bent.  We must recognize that that the natural consequences can be dire.

 

Summer, high alpine site:

 

       Advanced rated tandem instructor had been flying several hours per day on long, challenging cross country routes in spectacular terrain he  was just getting to know.  He was short on sleep and perhaps a bit jet lagged.  He was extremely excited about the flying and the potential of the area.  Cloud base was relatively low on the day of the accident. He launched at roughly 11: 00 AM, flew for three hours, assisting companions on their XC flights. After they landed he continued on to where three others were lunching and landed to join them.  He repeatedly mentioned his fatigue at the table and suggested he probably shouldn't be flying.  But he was under some time pressure to arrive at another flying site later that afternoon and he relaunched with his companions a half hour later.  

                   He was a few hundred feet above launch, scratching for altitude fairly deep in an inside corner of a spectacular cliff, about 4000 feet above the valley floor. He felt his right wing go soft and started to crab slightly towards the cliff. He weight shifted to the left which did not correct the bank angle. Then he applied some left brake and lost airspeed. However he was still banking right so he tried turning into the turn to retain airspeed hoping to parallel the cliff face. At this point the right wingtip took a slight tuck and steepened the turn. The pilot accelerated directly at the cliff. With no room to turn the pilot leveled out and flared, hitting the cliff perfectly square at about 25mph and severely damaging both ankles.

        The pilot and glider faced the cliff and continued to try to fly forward, scraping down the rough limestone in a constant stall, fraying the leading edge and several lines. Unable to turn away from the cliff, he pulled evenly on his D lines to move the stalled glider backwards, flying away from the cliff about 15 feet, then rapidly released the D's and tried to spin, turning the glider 90 degrees and impacting the cliff slightly.

With one side of the wing flying and the other scraping on the wall the pilot weight shifted to the flying half and pushed away from the cliff with his free arm.

         Miraculously the glider was still airworthy. He flew away from the cliff and radioed his companions that he had broken both of his ankles and was flying out to the valley to land near or in the water recreation areas that lay below. His friends dissuaded him from a water landing, and he eventually landed on his seat in a grassy field next to the road and was very rapidly evacuated to the hospital where severe and complex fractures involving both feet and ankles were addressed by immediate lengthy surgery.  He has undergone a month of hospitalization, several more operations, and is still facing more reconstruction and extensive rehabilitation. There was no neurological injury.

      That this pilot survived is a true testament to his tenacity and flying skill.  Not very many people would have had the presence of mind to fly backward after this degree of injury.  He feels that his exhaustion was the main significant contributing factor to his momentary lapse in turning back into the cliff.  He was in a difficult situation before the crash, in a rotor that was curling him back further into the vertical gully like a whirlpool. It would probably have been marginally safer simply to fly straight away from the cliff and hope for the best instead of trying to climb out of the odd air.  The best way to avoid this kind of accident is to fly farther from the terrain.

      This is an extremely complex scenario.  As our flights get more elaborate with our increasing skill and our exploration of new areas, we will keep finding situations that challenge our understanding of our sport, its possibilities and our own limitations.  We need to listen carefully when that voice within suggests backing off.   But above all his story instructs that we should never give up.

         Thank you all for your support in providing reports for these articles.  We can’t  improve our safety without knowing what sorts of things go wrong.   

 

**********

Flight Plan Errors

 

"There has been an alarming increase in the number

of things I know nothing about."

---Anonymous

 

          Several years ago when I was just a beginner, I hiked to the top of Dog Mountain in the Columbia Gorge with two friends. I had actually been up here on five prior occasions but the wind had always been much too strong. Today was a little better. the launch faces southwest, and the wind wasn’t wiggling the trees too much. The waves on the river, 3000 feet below, were from the east, and just big enough to cap. The wind in the trees behind us was backward too, but we were in a gentle rotor.  Yee-ha!  we thought; finally we get to launch this site.

      All three of us got in the air.The launch was tricky and we all sank fast for a few hundred feet, but after that it was fun.  We flew out, taking pictures, having a good time. Dalton, in front, realized he was in trouble first. The east wind was going to keep him from penetrating to the LZ. He was smart  enough to fly out to a very skinny beach on the river, and had no radio to warn us.  I didn’t catch on until I flew out over the river at 1000 feet AGL and noticed I was stationary. Stuffing the bar didn’t help enough and I settled toward the forest canopy just short of the LZ. Transfixed by this prospect, it didn’t even occur to me to follow Dalton.  Stomping on my accelerator,  I drew near the forest but a couple hundred feet above the treetops the ground effect slowed the wind and I cleared the last line of tall trees and power lines by a few feet.

       Our third wasn’t so lucky. Distracted by photography,he was a little farther downwind when he noticed the problem, managed to find a tiny slot in the trees, but as soon as he got into it, ground effect stalled the wing to perch forty feet up in a tall deciduous tree.

       No one was hurt and the glider only cost three hundred dollars to fix. I’d like to say we learned a lot, but we went on to commit  many more flight plan errors and somehow avoid injury. Luck sometimes works.

 

        Since air is invisible, it is relatively easy to imagine that it’s doing just what we want it to do. Our failure to recognize the consequences of launching into a rotor and then trying to penetrate back through a strong headwind to the LZ seems monumentally dumb from my current point of view, but back then I just hoped I was right. That time, the guardian angel was successful.  Our safety depends on critical assessment of conditions as they are, not as we want them to be. We must  plan for all contingencies, since we don’t  always interpret the situation correctly. This is as important as the rest of the preflight.

 

       Here’s a great example of  flight plan error. The outcome is good and the pilot, Mark Forbes (name released with permission) has critiqued the situation extremely well.

 

       My second flight went pretty well at first. It wasn't

too crowded, and the southeasterly wind provided good

lift along the cliff face.  I was

able to fly along the east side of the hill, looking

straight down onto the rocky cliffs and gorgeous blue

water and big waves breaking against the rocks.

Penetration wasn't a problem in the southeast wind. I could

pull brakes down about 2/3, and just hover motionless,

going up vertically. Off the brakes, and I was making about

8 mph along the ground. This was FUN!

 

      15 minutes passed, and the nice conditions tempted more pilots

into the air. It began to get a little crowded, (for me) with

hang gliders and paragliders all flying along the ridge. I was

trying to remember all the ridge rules and apply them appropriately,

(what do you do when you're looking at three pilots all

converging on your location?) and trying to keep out of

everyone's way. The crowd seemed thickest right in front of

launch, and over to the south side of the hill. I decided to

slide over to the east a bit to stay out of their way.

 

        As I turned left and headed downwind toward the east face,

a tandem pilot was pointing vehemently toward the gaggle.

I figured I'd probably violated somebody's right-of-way,

and continued to scoot out of the way. That east face had

worked nicely before, and I'd just stay over there and keep

out of the crowd. Another pilot pointed to the gaggle, and I

smiled and nodded.

 

       As I got a little way down the face, I noticed I was lower than

I had been before, and I was moving pretty fast. I turned back

into the wind, and STOPPED. Well, not quite....I was going down

a little, but I wasn't moving forward with about 1/2 brake applied.

A foggy clue began to form in my mind.....maybe it wasn't the

gaggle they'd been warning me about? I let off the brakes all the

way, and watched the rock out in front of me. It was moving up

in my field of view. Not Good.

 

       In front of me, an outcrop of the cliff ended in wave-churned foam.

Behind me, the same. Directly below, the flat rocks full of tide pools.

Waves were splashing against them, and little rivulets of water ran

across to keep the tide pools full. It was mostly dry on top though,

and it was my only make-able LZ.

 

       I did some fast thinking: "You've screwed up big time. You can't make

the primary LZ, and most of what's below will be instantly fatal. If

you continue on this course, you'll be closer to the beach, and you

might make it, IF it's just around the corner of that big rock. If

it's not, you'll ditch in the ocean. Behind you, there's supposed to

be a field near sea level, but it's also behind a rock and you don't

know exactly how far or whether you'd make it. If you're wrong, it's

the ocean again. The rocks below are landable if you do a good

approach and stick the landing, and don't drop the wing in the ocean."

 

         I committed to landing on the tide pool rocks below me. I turned back

downwind, turned away from the ridge again to set up into the wind, and

flew the wing fast down to the surface. A vigorous two-wrap flare, and I

put my feet down exactly where I wanted to, about 50 feet from the

downwind edge of the rocks. I took a few steps forward and toward the

cliff, and collapsed the wing to the landward side. As the wing dropped

into a tide pool, I immediately unlocked my carabiners and detached myself

from the wing. As I was unhooking, I looked over to the sea as a big

wave broke against the rocks and sent a gush of saltwater my direction.

 

        I got free of the wing and immediately ran for the cliff side. Over there,

I unhooked from the harness and got my helmet off, then cautiously

returned to the wing.

 = = = = = = =

 

Decision-making, good and bad:

 

My first bad decision was to fly without a radio.

 

Second bad decision was relaxing and watching the scenery. I wasn't

keeping one eye on the windsock at all times. Mark Mitsos had talked

to me before I flew, and warned me that the wind could shift around

from east to south pretty fast. I'd acknowledged that, but didn't

truly grasp the consequences.

 

Third bad decision was to stay along the cliff face and go to the east

side to avoid traffic.

 

Fourth bad decision was to not have a safe LZ within easy glide at all

times. I'd seen the rocks below, but I didn't consider that to be a

safe LZ. The fact that I did land there safely doesn't change its

suitability.

 = = = = = = =

 

First good decision was to fly. I had a great time, met a bunch of

nice people, learned a lot about soaring my wing, and really enjoyed

the whole experience.

 

Second good decision was to take the LZ I had, rather than try for

something 'better'. I was very tempted to just keep flying upwind

toward the beach, hoping it would get 'all better' somehow. That

may work in the movies, but this was real life. I knew that if I

kept on trying to reach the primary LZ, I'd most likely land short

in the surf, and probably die. Mark Mitsos told me later that he

was flying tandem with his son, who said "Daddy, is that man gonna

die? (Meaning me!)" You'd think if a five-year-old recognized

that I was in trouble, I might have had a clue.

 

Third good decision was to have a plan  for the landing and

collapse of the wing. I knew that I wanted to get it away from the

sea as much as I could, and that I couldn't afford to blow the landing

and injure myself. I also was thinking about the fatalities we've had

where a pilot fails to unhook and gets dragged out to sea and drowned.

I'd checked my hook knife location, and was prepared to use it if

a wave got hold of the wing.. As soon as it hit the ground, I was unhooking.

 

Ed. Note:  There followed a short saga finding a way back up the cliff with a wet wing. This was a serious error and could easily have cost Mark his life. He was saved by that curious mixture of luck, perseverance, ingenuity, and good training that make for great stories for grandchildren yet unborn.  Please report your accidents!  You too can be famous in the eyes of your grandchildren.

 

**********

A lot of accidents are being reported now.  I’ve collected many in several categories.  However today I want to share a sample of my miscellaneous pile. It’s a good way to learn about the somewhat less common but extremely important kinds of accidents and  how to avoid them.

 

Beach site, afternoon,  low cloud base, generally light winds but some stronger periods.  A beginner pilot waited on launch with locals who were having short sled rides.  The fluctuating wind became unlauncheably light then later began to build again. More short flights followed, and the victim-to-be set up for a reverse inflation.  He was lifted from the ground before he could turn but rotated easily and flew away down the beach.  Almost immediately he found strong lift and within moments was in the fog.  He could see nothing, and had no additional navigation gear with him.  he tried to use his speed bar but then noticed it wasn’t hooked up. He tried to do big ears but had minimal experience with them and became frightened he may get low out over the water.  Then he decided to try to do S-turns over the landing zone.  However he suddenly perceived houses and wires through the fog. His glider got caught in the wires as he crashed through the top of a fence onto a concrete patio. His injuries included a shoulder separation and a large lower back bruise.  The glider had multiple electric burn holes.

        There are several lessons here.  The first one has to do with margin of safety.  This very new pilot had very limited skills and equipment to deal with the possibility of too much lift.  While not expected,  good lift was a possibility in this scenario and needed to be planned for.  One could argue that a pilot of this training level had no business launching into a situation like this. However , once in the air he still had a few safe options.  His strong launch showed him that there was plenty of lift available and he would prudently have sought extra margin by flying out instead of up, entering big ears immediately or at least by very warily evaluating his distance to cloud base and responding to it.  He could have turned back and out as soon as he was aware of the strong lift he found farther down the beach. He also could have sought clues that may conceivably have helped him maintain orientation in the cloud such as sun angle, noise sources, etc. But once in the cloud his situation was immediately desperate. Cloud flying is not legal and near the ground it is always extremely dangerous.  Disorientation is the rule, not the exception.  When the possibility exists that one might be forced into “the white room”  it is crucial to have some way to ascertain direction, at least if one is close to the ground. (Cumulus cloud suck is almost an entirely different topic and other considerations apply) A simple compass is extremely useful in this setting. A gps can be helpful, but of course it only tells you your direction of travel, not the direction you are facing.  Sometimes it is possible to sense the direction to the sun when one is in a cloud and if so that can be very helpful.

        Altimeter and vario are not as critical, but also extremely useful. Without them, one can  fly ever higher into a cloud without realizing it.  They also help one assess where one is relative to dangers such as a water landing or a ridge.

          Once in the cloud, what should this particular pilot have done?  He had no good choices. If he had any directional awareness, based on sun angle, noises, any faint visual cues from the ground or any instruments, it would probably have been least dangerous to maintain a generally offshore course, perhaps with big ears, until he got below or ahead of the clouds again. This would keep him facing upwind, so moving slower, and keep him farther from fixed obstacles like wires. He was preoccupied about landing in the ocean, but after being sucked into the fog one can reasonably expect to have an extremely favorable downwind glide back to the beach. With no directional awareness a straight course in big ears optimizes ones chances of survival, as one’s forward speed is decreased and hopefully one is losing altitude.  The stakes are very high in this game and the outcome could easily have been fatal. Prevention and preparedness are the key. I might add that S-turns will almost always increase one’s disorientation and thus danger.

         Not having the speed bar set up is a significant preflight error.  Though a speed bar is useless in a cloud and should not be used unless you know your heading, it is often a very easy way to stay under a cloud you are otherwise being sucked into.

          This pilot commented in his report that he wished some of the more experienced pilots on site had perhaps warned him of the danger.  While this of course would be ideal,  other pilots do not know whether you can do ears or use your speed bar, or that you don’t have a compass.  When you launch, it is critical to consider all the possible outcomes you could imagine, and make certain you have the skills and equipment to cope with all of them.  “I think I can” was good for the little engine pulling the train up the hill, but it is a trap for the unwary pilot.

 

         Here is the upside down version of this problem:  Ocean cliff site.  Fairly light conditions, good LZ is a good ways left of launch.  Several pilots have soared and landed in conditions that were barely strong enough. A very experienced tandem pilot chose to launch with a fairly heavy passenger.  He maintained and gained a little altitude, turned right but then noticed some very gentle turbulence and began to sink. When he turned back left he was already well below launch and the one good beach LZ was not within reach. Sinking rapidly the pilot was rather miraculously able to land himself and the passenger on a one meter square ledge ten meters above the ocean, and brought the canopy down against the rocks above.  The passenger bruised his heel.  The two were able to climb back up to launch.   A superior pilot uses superior judgment to avoid needing to deploy his superior skill.  But note that in this case after two initial errors; launching heavy and turning away from the LZ, this very experienced pilot was able to make a sequence of very timely and effective choices.  It’s interesting that for very experienced pilots time during emergency situations  often seems to slow down to allow almost miraculous precision.  This is usually not the case for beginners.

 

       Here’s an accident that appears to be happening with variants around the country but is probably underreported:  Aerobatic flying in fairly stable air, starting a few thousand feet up:

         Very experienced pilot is flying a borrowed DHV 2-3 wing one size bigger than one with which he is very familiar. Part way through a routine of SAT's,

spins and stalls the pilot attempted to perform a dynamic {asymmetric entry}

SAT for the first time on this particular over-sized wing.The pilot was not able to load

the glider enough to stay away from the tips, and climbed in an

non-coordinated fashion towards the left side of the glider. This allowed a

left side cravat to occur. The pilot swung down and through from the apex and a very hard spiral ensued starting at 600 feet AGL. The pilot considered spinning to free the cravat but decided to deploy the reserve. He needed two hands to deploy the shoulder mount  given the G-loading. The reserve slowly started to inflate when the wing swung around in the spiral and  plastered the reserve shut against the upper cascades.  The pilot tried to reverse this but was unsuccessful given the short time frame and the difficulty in raising his hands to the brakes against the G-forces. He impacted at  full speed on low bushes suffering a burst fracture of L4, medevac, 8 hour surgery, and 11 days in hospital, but no neurological damage.

 

Just to mention some issues briefly.  First, don’t underestimate the effect of a wing size change.  Tandem pilots remember that different sized student passengers can radically alter your glider’s flying characteristics.  Second: don’t underestimate centrifugal force.  Third:  the parachute is a second chance. It is not a guarantee.  Fourth:  Aerobatics are very challenging.  They take your wing well past what it was designed for.  Expert pilots can make them look routine, but for most of us the risks involved in performing maneuvers in unsupervised settings without back up safety plans (like lakes with rescue boats) are higher than we tend to estimate.

 

       Over the years I’ve received a lot of  thanks for the work that goes into producing this column.  This is gratifying to me but even  more it reflects how important your reports are to all those pilots out there who are just trying to fly safely.  I would like to pass the thanks from our readers to you the reporters. Keep up the good work.

 

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Inexperience

 

       The United States Department of Defense published military aviation accident statistics at the end of last year.  There were sixty-eight accidents, fifty-four aircraft destroyed and seventy-six fatalities, for  about 1.5 accidents for 100K flying hours.  In our sport  rough calculations suggest we had about  90K hours of total airtime last year, and four fatalities, for a rate of about 4.5 fatalities per 100K flying hours.  Thus our death rate is about three times as high as the peacetime military's.  At least we don't destroy as many paragliders.

     In a somewhat similar vein, a summary of accidents in hot air ballooning was recently published in the medical literature. From 1991 to 1995 there were ninety-three crashes and sixteen deaths. At the end of that time period, after years of steady growth, there were 7123 balloons registered with the FAA.  At about 3.2 deaths per year, involving roughly 5,000 balloons, this rate is about half of our rate of fatalities per vehicle. But since balloons typically carry more than one person, this denominator is not directly comparable to our sport, and  it might be more honest to estimate ballooning as about a quarter as risky as what we do.

    Here are some reports whose common thread is the interaction between  inexperienced pilots and their supposedly wiser peers.

 

     June 1997, Coastal Oregon

 

     Relatively inexperienced pilot pulled up in a strong thermal cycle to do a reverse inflation. He was yanked into the air, responded by going deep in his brakes, was pulled back up the hill and hit face first in a parking lot, sustaining facial injuries.

 

    August 1997, Practice slope, Oregon

 

    Student pilot, late in the day, flat lighting.  There was sink directly after launch and pilot was worried he wouldn't make the LZ and thought he might land in a herd of cows.  He misjudged his altitude on approach and landed almost unexpectedly, unprepared to run and failing to flare.  He fell forward, sustaining a fracture of the left heel.

 

     December 1997, Practice Slope, Oregon

 

   Student pilot had a good launch and flight, and prepared to land in light and variable conditions. He tripped on some bunchgrass and fell, fracturing his tibia.

 

 

 

       Preventing the accidents of inexperience is not always possible. Decreasing their incidence is a special challenge to our community and is one area that places other pilots at the site in most uncomfortable and unwelcome roles.  Clearly whenever anyone decides to pull up a glider and launch the responsibility for the outcome of the flight rests solely on the pilot. However, what more experienced pilots do can make a difference for the outcome, and unfortunately, most of us know the feeling of wishing we had said something. 

       New pilots need steady conditions, both meteorologically and topographically, and even biologically, as can be appreciated by the cow fixation report.  A P3 intermediate pilot with some appreciation for the timing of thermal cycles may easily and safely pull up in air that could trash an unsuspecting neophyte.  Someone for whom running with a glider overhead is a weekly experience is much less likely to trip on bunchgrass. Those of us with more experience sometimes have a difficult time remembering how the minor annoyances of imperfect kiting techniques, unfamiliarity with line management and ground handling, and tentativeness in our reactions in the air could snowball quickly into an injury.

       Here are two more incidents in Coastal Oregon in which no injuries occurred.  They happened a week apart. Relatively newer pilots in each case were about to experience one of their first three or four high altitude flights.  The site  has a short running slope, and a tangle of stumps and vines below it. It's difficult to launch in light conditions, requiring good cycle timing. In each case, the P2 pilot laid out the glider, and suddenly five or six experienced pilots picked up the trailing edge and tried to help the P2 launch in minimal wind. In each case a big collapse on launch dumped the pilot into the stumps. In each case the pilot felt some peer pressure to get off the launch, although the experienced pilots were all waiting for better conditions.

       Much earlier in my paragliding career. I had the symmetrically opposite experience. I tried to launch into a twenty mph wind with a lot of help. The main person holding me tried to turn me as I was yanked from the ground, but turned me the wrong way. I never did get control of my spinning wing, and was dribbled like a basketball for about a hundred yards, battered but not broken. My helmet was shattered.  Both of the helpers have been feeling a certain amount of remorse ever since. As the pilot I feel strongly that the responsibility for the accident was mine alone, but this doesn't fully console my helpers, who still occasionally talk about it five years later.

      Helping inexperienced pilots launch has always been a controversial topic, but many instructors feel that when we physically help pilots we place them at greater risk, since they are attempting to launch in more challenging conditions.  Launch help for students in optimal settings during early training may be didactically necessary,  but when pilots are out on their own,  you can risk your own peace of mind and good sleep by encouraging them to fly in air that you yourself might not choose to be in.

 

Unexpected Stalls

 

      Here are three similar accidents with a common thread. They all happened to at least moderately experienced pilots in familiar settings.

 

11/97  An East Bay site, California

 

     P2 with 50 hours flying an Air Tek Mirage launches at noon in gusty wind. The launch was clean but at about one hundred feet AGL there was a collapse, probably thermal-induced. The pilot reported recovery maneuvers, but didn't describe what he did, and he was unsuccessful. Impact caused forearm and pelvic fractures.

 

     January 1998, mountain site , Colorado

 

     Very experienced pilot launched an Edel Superspace II from a snowcovered grassy hillside in a steady ten mile per hour upslope wind.  He gained two hundred feet in the lift but on his third 180 degree turn he had a collapse greater than fifty percent, and began a spiral. Countersteering and weightshift failed to cause recovery and the pilot was hospitalized overnight with a back injury.

 

   July 1997, mountain site, Wyoming

 

     Very experienced  pilot launched a demo U.S. Voiles Hurricane in light thermal conditions. Several passes were made in front of launch at about fifty feet AGL; treetop level. The pilot felt he stalled his glider in one of the turns resulting in a sixty percent collapse and the glider spun violently into the wooded hillside. Pilot sustained chest and pelvic injuries and was not hospitalized.

 

    All three of the above involved collapses close to the ground during a turn while scratching for altitude.  In one case the conditions were described as gusty, but the other two were light or steady.  The precise cause of collapse was not clear in any of the situations, and none were anticipated by the pilots.  These reports are common, and serve to remind us again to keep enough airspeed in our turns, and to be very conscious of ground clearance.  Low speeds in tight turns near the ground are not safe for most of us, even in light or steady conditions.   

 

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Intermediate Syndrome

 

     The first extremely serious accident of the year befell a thirty-one year old pilot with only one year of experience but  already one hundred hours of air time.  This optimistic, intense, and very enthusiastic individual had already been given his advanced rating, and had competed in a national event. A few days before the mishap he had upgraded to a DHV 2-3 wing.

      He had arrived at his hometown mountain thermal site in the early morning of a day with a forecasted frontal passage.  Conditions could become challenging, but many good cross country flights had occurred under similar circumstances, and in the morning the wind was light.  The pilot flew by himself for a while, top landed, called some friends to ask for company, then flew down to meet one of them in the LZ.

       The two drove back up but noticed on launch that conditions were picking up, roughly as expected.  The victim was all set up to fly, and launched in the first available lull.  His partner was methodically getting ready but noticed the pilot was experiencing strong winds overhead.  He radioed a suggestion that the pilot fly out away from the hill to land but his radio battery died.  During a brief lull the pilot in the air decided to fly back toward the primary LZ, closer to the hill and subject to more turbulence.  Before he got there, he experienced a 50% asymmetric collapse and recovery, and then very strong thermal lift.  He flew straight through it,  and then, at about 600 feet AGL experienced a cascade of events beginning with an 80% asymmetric collapse.  There followed a surge, a full frontal collapse, significant rotation, partial recovery, and then a second 80% asymmetric collapse, and surge/spiral into the ground.  The friend estimates five seconds elapsed during the cascade. By then  there were 30 mph gusts on launch. The victim crashed in a neighborhood, impacting on an upright fencepost.  EMT response was immediate.  He was very severely injured, and initially unconscious, with C4 spinal injury, multiple thoracic and lumbar fractures, hip dislocation, liver and spleen lacerations.  His course has been complex and discouraging with multiple medical complications and he remains in intensive care, quadriplegic, semi responsive and on a ventilator 2 months later. His survival is in doubt. 

       The witness felt that the victim had a few options to improve his chances while in the air. During the lull he could have flown away from the hill. When he stumbled into big lift on the way back he could have tried to gain altitude, again to use to get clear of the area of maximum turbulence. Precise piloting may have interrupted the cascade of dyscontrol.  Most important, he could have thrown his reserve.  

      There’s a lot to learn from this extremely serious accident.  In critical situations, split-second perfect decision making might save the day.  Maneuvers training may help, but could also contribute to the problem on occasion if the pilot becomes overconfident, since the induced events are much easier to manage than is severe turbulence. Sometimes the perfect decision is to go hands up and let the wing sort itself out.This is extremely difficult to do in the heat of the moment, and doesn’t come naturally to the action oriented pilot.

      Second, the choice to throw one's reserve must be made sometime during a scenario like this and with enough altitude for it to work.  We’ve all experienced turbulence, and the wing has always recovered. Therefore we assume it always will.               

       Thirdly, a dead radio battery may well have contributed to the initiation of the event. It is our observation that dead radio batteries are factored into many accident reports over the years.  Good communication really does have the potential to decrease risk.And bad luck was involved. The injuries were far worse because he hit a fencepost.  Small obstacles seem to be more dangerous than we perceive, perhaps partly because they look so little from the air.  We need to increase our awareness of them , and where possible, remove them from launches and LZ’s.

      But by far the most critical issue raised by this event is the recognition of intermediate syndrome, and its cardinal symptom, the purchase of a high performance  wing.   I find it most distressing to be reporting yet another very severe event, a year after three of four fatal paragliding accidents occurred to masters level pilots on high performance or competition wings.  Please think long and hard before you buy a DHV 2-3 or higher wing.  For the vast majority of pilots (This probably means you)  you pay more money, get a glider that's impossible to resell, and the only change in your flying is that you are in greater danger.  Hot wings feel very safe when you demo them in moderate conditions, but they are much harder to fly in ugly air. The only significant performance difference is the top speed.  Sink rates are really comparable. You may save seconds or minutes in a race, but a DHV 1- 2 wing is every bit as likely to make a long cross country trip.  In many cases you are more likely to succeed cross country in a more stable wing because you can handle rougher conditions. The purpose of paragliding is not to fly as fast as possible. That's what the X-15 rocket was for. A hot wing does not give you more value for your money, and you are significantly more likely to die.

      If you are still daydreaming about a hot wing, you are either flying for a living and competing regularly, or else you have intermediate syndrome.  This common and extremely insidious condition is very difficult to self-diagnose.  Do you have between fifty and two hundred hours of air time? Are you often the first off the hill? Do you notice that others suggest that you not fly when you aren’t too worried yourself?  Are you enthusiastic and optimistic? These endearing qualities are themselves risk factors. Do instructors seem to be unreasonably conservative about increasing your rating?   If so; BEWARE!  Intermediate syndrome kills, as surely as drunk driving.  It is truly an altered state of mind.

       This accident has caused quite a bit of controversy about the responsibility of instructors to prevent an intermediate from getting into trouble.  In their defense, while instructors and other very experienced pilots have no trouble recognizing intermediate syndrome,  victims rarely can be made to understand the seriousness of their own malady.  They are often quite insistent about their own advancement and do whatever it takes to drive it forward.  The compulsion is overwhelming to fly in scary air and to upgrade to scary wings.  Just like adolescents,  they believe they are immortal.    

     Perhaps even more difficult than self diagnosis is the treatment.  Unfortunately the surest way to get beyond intermediate syndrome is to have a serious accident that requires some extended recovery.  (Incidentally, I  write these reports partly because I survived a fairly dreadful injury myself.) When you experience the consequences , it's easier to be careful.

       The elusive goal of the accident committee and of this reporter is to figure out how to help the intermediate pass through this stage without making the kind of mistake I made. I was lucky, but you can’t depend on that. We need to create a culture in which intermediate behavior is  made inconvenient, and is negatively  reinforced on every level. We need to promote awareness of the seriousness of accidents, and their preventability.  In the fifties, an unprecedented epidemic of heart disease was recognized and health care organizations mobilized to decrease the death rate.  The solutions were complex and involved many behavioral and environmental changes as well as medical advances, but the end result was a dramatic reduction in cardiac mortality.  We have the same opportunity to improve our own chances with this problem.  Let’s get to work.

 

         If you have had an accident recently, there is nothing more important  that you can do for this sport than report it now. You will save someone’s life.  That matters.

 

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Seizing a Chance

 

    In his classic instruction manual, Noel Whittal describes airmanship as follows:

          

           "Being able to appreciate the difference between seizing an opportunity and taking a chance, and then leaving nothing to chance"

 

      Very good advice, which I think maximizes the attitude most likely to keep us alive with the right number of bones.  Statistically speaking though, the difference between an opportunity and a chance is  relative, and all opportunities involve some degree of  risk.  It is true that  high levels of skill can decrease the danger in any given maneuver,  but there is always some chance that one might get it wrong, especially when split second responses are required, and risk increases rapidly if there's no opportunity to recover from a mistake.  Chris Santacroce did a hundred death spirals before he decided that  the price of muffing it was too high.  The rest of us need to consider that balance each time we pull up our gliders.  How likely am I to pull up out of control, and if I do, how good are my options.

       A number of recently reported accidents have involved mishaps at launch or in the first seconds of flight. Here are a few examples. To preserve anonymity, dates are by month only, and the preposition "he" applies to a pilot of either sex.

 

    July, 1997,  Palisades, Southeast Oregon,  midday

 

       This site has been used by hang pilots in the past but never by paragliders.  The launch is in a steep alcove at the tip of a ridge, a setting with a certain amount of rotor potential. Conditions appeared excellent, with puffy cumulus formation, and light prevailing wind. A few of the cycles seemed fairly strong, and they seemed to come from various directions.  The launch was up to forty degrees, mostly shale scree with small rock outcroppings and bushes. The P3 pilot with 100+ hours experience and 350 flights had difficulty laying out his large Edel Saber because of the steep and uneven terrain.  He tried pulling the glider up with a crossed brake reverse technique but the lift wasn't quite strong enough to kite and the glider settled into a tree after the left side collapsed.  As he was extracting his wing, he didn't notice a cycle that was quite cross, and actually foiled another paraglider launch next to him.  He pulled up again, and spun around, pushing off aggressively.  At that moment a collapse began in his left wing, rapidly reaching fifty percent. He was spun into the slope and impacted without doing a PLF, suffering multiple fractures of his right leg and ankle, as well as an avulsion injury on the left.  It should be added that the evacuation by private car, first to Lakeview Hospital, and later  to Klamath Falls, was  problematical, and potentially very expensive, since the only other viable option was air ambulance.

 

August, 1997, Walshes, Aspen, late morning.

 

Under leeside thermal conditions with significant turbulence and crosswind, there are reports that other pilots chose not to launch. A very experienced  pilot  pulled up an Airwave XM, a competition glider, launched  and had an immediate collapse. He crashed immediately on his left side, breaking his pelvis and some ribs; requiring a week of hospitalization.  He had never flown the wing before, and feels the brakes were adjusted too long, delaying his reaction to the collapse.

 

January, 1998, Gobblers Knob, near Newberg, Oregon

 

This is a small site with a tight launch and in winter conditions can be soared in steady winds. The pilot has had five years of hang gliding experience and over 500 flights, but only about 30 hours of paragliding. He was flying an Advance Omega 2, an older model competition wing. At 10:30 AM he pulled up into a straight in,  steady 12mph wind.  He was snatched into the air and immediately struggled to get his left foot into the speedbar because he was afraid he might blow over the back into some electric wires.  As he was doing this he had a fifty percent collapse of his left wing at about thirty feet AGL. He spun around and impacted on his left side, suffering several fractures of his hip joint and requiring fairly extensive surgery.  Rescue was relatively simple in this metropolitan area. The pilot had felt that his speed bar was adjusted much too high, and hadn't gotten around to fixing it.

 

       In twenty-twenty hindsight it's easy to see that each of these pilots took a chance, had a severe malfunction close to the ground and didn't have the resources to handle it. In the first case, a difficult site with quite complex geometry was being launched for the first time in fairly strong conditions. Superior skill in the second case couldn't compensate for turbulence and poorly adjusted, unfamiliar equipment, and in the third case a relatively inexperienced pilot induced a malfunction while attempting to prevent a blowback, also with poorly adjusted equipment.

 

      It is comforting in a way to sort out the details of an accident to find that the pilot  "should" have been able to cope with the situation at hand or have understood the inadvisability of launching. Unfortunately we are all fairly equally human, only some are luckier than others.  The following comments are made purely in search of ways to allow us to need less luck. 

 

1. Preflight

 

Preflight everything. Michael Robertson writes of the Wind, the Wing, and the Windividual.  Preflight all three W's and don't forget a fourth: the World, i.e. the geography you are launching from and into. Here are some parts of preflight that may not be habitual. Every launch carries the risk of injury or death. Each one deserves your full attention.

 

         The Wind:  How much do I know about the conditions? How realistic is my interpretation of what's happening?  What is the potential for surprise in this setting? What sort of surprises might happen and what will I have to be ready to do to cope with them? Can I imagine wind changes here that I could not cope with, given my skill, or the limitations of my equipment?

 

         The Wing:   How often do we really preflight our wing? We were taught to look at all the seams with each launch; but none of us do that.  It's critical for us to choose parts of the preflight that we will actually do consistently, because there is significant risk that they will turn up something out of line. We have no equivalent in paragliding to the hook-in problem in hang gliding, but there are parts of our preflight that are especially likely to discover trouble before it happens. Have we forgotten to buckle things?  Are all adjustments correct (trim, brakes, speed bar)? Are there line tangles, or lineovers. For the latter two, reverse inflations are remarkably safer than forwards, since it is possible to build a good wall, and inspect the glider so well. So a situation in which we cannot perform a controlled reverse inflation adds significantly to the risk of tangles. How will we cope with that? Last but by no means least, what kind of wing are we flying, and how likely is it to challenge our skills? Is it appropriate for the situation?

 

     The Windividual: Of course it matters how awake you are, how centered you are, how skilled you are and how fit you are.  But what about how ready you are for the possible emergencies in the specific situation? Identify the particular difficulties of this launch and figure out how prepared you are to cope with each one you can think of. Carefully rehearse in your mind what your response will be. How well do you know your equipment?  How anxious are you to fly right now, and is that impairing your judgment?  Are other pilots choosing not to fly, and how do you feel about that?

 

    The World:  What special dangers do you have to cope with at this launch?  How will the launch geometry affect the wind?  What about the footing, the steepness, the obstacles? How do these affect your ability to abort a launch? If you crash, what will you crash on? If you're injured here,  how hard will it be to rescue you, or even to discover you?

 

 

    After going through this mental exercise, step back, figuratively speaking, and add it all up. Is an opportunity presenting itself? Are you leaving anything to chance?

 

 

2. Recovery

 

       Mechanical turbulence will often be sharpest at the ground, and for the first several seconds after launch the wing is accelerating and hasn't yet reached full flying speed, or internal pressure.   This is a vulnerable period, and collapses are more likely. Unfortunately they are also much more dangerous .  How you do when one happens will depend on 1. How bad the turbulence is.  2. How bad the collapse is.  3. How twitchy the glider is.  And 4. How prepared the pilot is. We directly control numbers 3 and 4, and  our actions affect the other two.

 

       We've already discussed judgment of conditions.  So lets deal with severity of collapse.  In our third example the collapse was directly induced by the pilot. The other cases are examples of the special vulnerability of the launch, combined in at least one case with poorly adjusted equipment hindering a pilots' response.  Remember always that your wing is more prone to collapse at launch.  Take action to prevent collapses.  That means flying straight out away from the hill at trim speed with your hands in the correct brakes, ready for anything.

 

     I don't want to spend a lot of energy here discussing how hot a glider to buy. We all need to examine this carefully. But one thing is clear. High performance wings are definitely more dangerous. It doesn't matter who the pilot is. We are all safer on a lower performance wing.

 

   Finally, coping with a collapse near the ground is impossible unless all parts of it, from the weight shift, to the steering, to the pumping, to the PLF are automatic.  This means practicing them. It also means rehearsing all of them in your mind before any launch which you think  carries a special risk.  It means being in control of your glider during these critical moments, which mostly means not having tangles or twists, and having your hands in the correct brakes. If you're not doing these things you are leaving something to chance.

 

       Paragliding definitely has its dangers. Each year approximately one in a thousand U.S.pilots has died flying. This is roughly comparable to motorcycling. A recent California study showed about  0.5 deaths per  thousand registered motorcycles per year, but  don't forget, many of these victims are drunk.

Motorcycle deaths tend to be underreported in hospital data so the true number may be closer to ours. I think we can do a lot better.

 

**********
Laundry

 

I've always wanted to do a report on reserve deployments.  Here are some interesting examples.

 

Desert mid-day thermal site:

 

     Relatively inexperienced pilot launched into a small thermal cycle on a DHV 1-2 glider and started to turn. He reported a sudden large right sided deflation and immediate reinflation as he swung under the glider.  The resulting surge caused the wing to go below the horizon in front of the pilot and the lines went slack. As he swung back under the wing the pilot noted a left tip cravat and immediately entered a spiral dive.  Weight shift and right brake were ineffective as G forces mounted rapidly. The incident had started at launch level and so the pilot deployed his reserve immediately. Down planing ensued; the pilot tried to disable the glider with the brakes but gave up because the pressure was too high. He was swinging forward facing away from the hill when he impacted in steep dirt on his Mousse bag and escaped injury.

       This incident may have been preventable by accelerating a bit more away from the hill before turning, and also by more skilled surge management. This can be taught to inexperienced pilots under radio control. Otherwise one must build experience by long periods of practice in milder conditions...It’s reasonable to reassess this pilot’s decision to launch into this particular site’s notoriously active noontime air. 

      Disabling a glider while under a reserve is another large and controversial topic. The goal is to avoid deployment in the first place.  Once this has happened it may be easier to haul in the glider by a wing tip line.

 

High mountain site, XC conditions  (L&V, strong lapse rate; building afternoon valley winds:

 

     Twelve pilots gathered and launched in 3 groups of 4.  Conditions were active, but tolerable, and the group climbed fairly easily to several hundred feet above launch, then went on glide. After a bit the first group reported encountering sudden strong headwinds and turbulence and warned against proceeding.  The last group was able to turn and fly the other direction toward the normal LZ.  The middle group was already below ridge level, however, and had to continue.  Within minutes they were hit by the conditions described by the first group, which got worse and worse as they descended and tried to penetrate with speed system engaged.  Despite multiple frontal deflations, 3 pilots landed safely.  The last pilot, with an intermediate rating,  suffered a sudden asymmetrical collapse of over 60% at about 150 feet AGL. He started to turn rapidly and threw his reserve.  The reserve opened in time but upon impact a dust devil lifted the pilot back up 10-20 feet, then strong winds dragged him at least 500 feet back up the ridge over rocky terrain until he regained control.  The pilot's radio and GPS were destroyed, and, glider, helmet and harness suffered significant damage.  The pilot walked away with only multiple bruises and an elbow laceration requiring 2 stitches. 

 

      What an unenviable situation!  Was the speed bar engaged close to the ground?  How about the decision to deploy the reserve at 150 feet?  Both of those actions may have been optimal for the situation, but perhaps not. The pilot had a hook knife but forgot about it in the heat of the moment. Maybe one should practice reaching for the hook knife right after rehearsing a deployment.  The outcome in this case was actually pretty reasonable, considering the risks.  

 

     Accidents and incidents that befall very experienced pilots seem often to be more complex and epic than the simple errors of beginners, or the disasters experienced by intermediates.  This is partly because experts may fly in rougher air.  However, they can often remember more of the details of their incidents, and furthermore they may try more complex and sophisticated resolution strategies. Every year about this time we get a few reports from the gurus: 

 

Complex, high altitude lee side thermal site, midsummer:

      Advanced tandem instructor launched solo at 1:00 pm on a DHV 2 wing.  Pilots were getting up out in front.  The wind was beginning to blow over the back, but there were still good cycles coming up. Such convergence is sought after for XC flying at this site.  The reporter launched in the

same cycle as two other pilots, and they all flew out towards the house thermal. Suddenly He encountered conditions which resulted in a spin or a spiral and then immediate riser twists. He reached above the brake pulley, pulled the brake line, stopped the rotation, and untwisted the risers.  But almost immediately the glider turned hard again and with twists and a big asymmetric deflation he entered an ever increasing spiral.  He deployed his reserve was able to pull his balled up glider into his lap.  He drifted under reserve for over a minute and covered a fair amount of ground before doing a successful PLF into the rocks below.(impressive by itself)  He walked away.

     Pilots at launch reported that after this launch cycle, the wind

came over the back at a steady 20+ , and the pilots in the air

reported that this was some of the most violent air they had ever flown in. They had many collapses, and exceptionally strong lift and sink.

At lee side thermal sites there is often only a brief window between up

and away convergence lift, and getting pummeled in the rotor.  The pilot had had recent maneuvers training and speculates that may have made him overconfident in more marginal conditions.  Glider behavior in violent turbulence can not be simulated over water in instructional settings, but it should be noted that the pilot was able to manage the riser twist aspect partly on the basis of his training.

 

    On strong days, there is always a fine line as conditions build between great and blown out.  At some sites, especially lee side thermal launches, exploring that border is the way pilots pioneer long XC flights.  On those days with so much promise, it can be difficult for even the most experienced flyers to control their enthusiasm as this line is approached and  the duration of good launch conditions may be quite variable.  Visiting pilots need to respect local knowledge, and even the locals will not always get it right.

       Once this pilot was in trouble he made a very reasonable decision to deploy after trying to restabilize his wing. His experience illustrates how deployment is rarely the end of the story.  He landed in a boulder field in a very alpine area.  A PLF under those conditions requires quickness, agility, and luck.  As hostile as his LZ was, it could have actually been far worse. We all need to evaluate our own ability to cope with this level of complexity and plan our margin of error accordingly. Not enough has been written about the role of balance and athletic condition in pilot safety.

 

Here is an accident that could only befall a very seasoned pilot.  This event occurred in Austria but it illustrates several valuable lessons.  The conditions described are obviously extreme, and caused glider behavior one would never expect in a normal situation.

 

     Alpine thermal site, mid day:

 

      A group of very experienced cross country pilots assembled at a well known site famous for strong thermals.  They launched at about 5500 feet and were able to gain about 3000 feet to cloud base where they assembled in a gaggle to start cross country. The reporter was flying along the bottom and sides of what he thought was a weakening cumulus (The bottom was flattening and the lift was light) when suddenly he was sucked into the cloud at  over 3000 feet per minute. He entered an intentional spiral dive but the lift immediately increased. He decided to level out. His glasses fogged and as he was wiping them so he could see his GPS an inadvertent maneuver occurred, and the glider surged such that he met with the lines and the canopy.

     "I managed to free myself somewhat and ended up falling head down with my legs wrapped in lines and about 1 square meter of canopy left over my feet. Grabbing for my reserve, which I could not find at first I remembered being taught to check that you are holding the reserve handle and not the harness webbing...So I stopped trying to tear my webbing apart, found my reserve handle and deployed while going head down at God knows what speed. It opened with a tremendous whack and I felt like on the end of a lashing whip. So does my neck now. While descending (still in the cloud) I gathered whatever was left of my canopy and radioed my friends. I had to repeat myself three times before they believed me and finally spotted me.

      While coming down on my reserve, the varying winds in the valley made me cross the same power lines several times but finally I landed backwards on a 60 degree slope with low trees (approx. 10 feet) so a PLF was not possible. After grasping for air a couple of minutes, I packed everything in my rucksack and walked to the road." His vario recorded lift in excess of 20 m/sec (roughly 4000 feet per minute.)  He gained about 4500 feet in the cloud.

 

       This spectacular incident illustrates again the allure of the strong XC conditions and then the the reasons one can't assume that the reserve will save the day. The violent surge occurred because of conditions that should never be experienced by a cautious flyer. This pilot’s escape from his wing and subsequent very eventful reserve descent also remind us of the importance of keeping one’s head under extreme conditions, as well  as the athletic demands of the landing.

        As usual, prevention would have involved staying farther from the cloud.  Cloud base is a seductive and powerful place.  More than a few pilots, like Icarus, have been drawn too close, but often we get away with it.  It's is very difficult to judge when a cloud is too strong. Detailed knowledge of the weather helps as does long experience, but very seasoned pilots can make this mistake. It's safer just to follow VFR rules. This has the added very important advantage of being legal. Once in the cloud the forces may get much stronger and the pilot may completely lose orientation, both for direction but even more important for the horizon.  This dramatically increases the risk that one may lose control of the glider.

        The spiral dive probably centered the pilot in the ferocious core. A better response is to fly straight, perhaps in big ears. Once under the reserve, the pilot repeatedly faced the prospect of a power line landing, but in the end was spared. He later bought a steerable reserve.

 

       Thanks again, all of you unbashful reporters. Together you are quietly saving lives and bones.           -Pete Reagan

   

**********
Midsummer Nightmares

 

 

          I used to be a mountain climber.  As my experience grew, I tried increasingly difficult routes and occasionally came home with very exciting stories.  As a pilot now I’m as struck by the differences between the two endeavors as I am by the similarities.  Climbing has an heroic or almost military aspect.  Words like siege, conquer, attack, overcome, and victory imply an almost mythical importance to the ascent.  However, commitment to the climb usually occurs gradually  as one enters increasingly hostile terrain. This allows a person to heed second thoughts, and retreat if the margin gets to thin.  If you think you might be able to succeed at a route, that becomes the best reason to try it.

       Flying is different.  It lacks the heroic aspect.  Most foot launched flight has more in common with an afternoon of volleyball at the beach than a military campaign. Bravery is not rewarded here.  We seek grace.  We seek finesse. We strive for poetry in motion.  But in one aspect  flying is much less forgiving.  The commitment happens all at once, the moment one leaves the ground.  Thinking that one can probably do a flight becomes the best reason not to try it.

       The group of well known pilot adages we all can recite are variant ways to restate this fundamental contrast. There are no old, bold pilots.  When we step off the ground, we must have confidence that we can step back on.  This is our group ethic, and is incidentally one reason why our own accidents are so embarrassing, and why we are loathe to report them.

 

First  there are three interesting tandem crashes, all at mountain sites in summer conditions, two involving new T1 pilots:

 

         Tandem instructor soars with a passenger for an hour in strong, smooth conditions,  then noted the wind increasing and switching. A frontal passage had been forecasted and  he decided to land. Several other solo pilots were in the air simultaneously and they headed out also. At that point penetration became nil, and big ears were employed from  1500 feet to about 300 feet AGL The pilot turned to make a downwind leg over the field but found himself in very strong sink, which continued to the ground. The two flew over a parking lot downwind at over 40 mph,  experiencing two deep surges.  They hit the top of a 4x4, bounced on the hood of a second, and slid to a stop under a third.  Both were taken on backboards to the emergency room, where both required stitches but had no fractures. The pilot was released that evening; the passenger the following morning.

 

        P4 T1 pilot making his thirteenth tandem flight set up for a top landing in mid day thermal conditions.  The launch is open but has a line of trees behind it. The pilot was on final approach about 15 feet above the line of trees when he experienced unexpected sink. He tried to initiate  a turn into clear air but felt the tandem glider didn’t respond as fast as he was accustomed.  As they went through the trees,  lines snagged on some branches, causing a collapse and spin into the ground.  The pilot required stitches in his arm, and subluxed his shoulder. The passenger had scrapes and bruises.

 

      P4 T1 pilot making his 18th tandem flight in midday thermal conditions gradually sank out and then headed for the LZ where he noted increased valley wind. Penetration shrank, and in order to get over the LZ as soon as possible he swung into the lee of some large trees.  He experienced a 40% collapse, then huge turbulence and sink. Pilot and passenger both PLF, but the pilot’s foot interacted with the passenger’s roll, and he suffered a complex ankle fracture requiring five days in the hospital and plate and screws.

 

      In a year of fewer than average accidents, we’ve experienced more than the usual percentage of tandem mishaps.  Paragliding is coming of age in our country and increasing numbers of experienced pilots are seeking tandem ratings, so a higher percentage of of flights are tandem.

        In two of these instances, the accident was precipitated by rotor from a row of trees. These must not be underestimated, can be very powerful, and often extend as far as ten times the height of the trees.

        The other accident involved a high speed downwind landing.  Tandem gliders land faster than solos because of the higher wing loading. Furthermore the pilot and passenger are not able to run out a landing as well as a solo pilot can. It becomes crucial to plan an approach that allows upwind ground contact.  It’s hard to imagine very many options (maybe powerlines; maybe moving water) worse than plowing into a full parking lot at forty mph.     

        All of these accidents are on approach and landing,  and  they all involve misjudging conditions.  The third reporter said it well: “The fact is, tandem flying is much more demanding. What is hard to fully grasp is that, while a P-4 and a T-1 are in the same body, one is very experienced and the other is a beginner. In retrospect, I made a P4 decision and then rigged up a T-1 scenario.” 

        Each tandem passenger brings his or her unique attitudes, fears, and abilities, not to mention weight,  and every tandem flight  is almost like flying a different aircraft.  It is critical to allow for these unforeseeable  aspects by making conservative decisions. Pilots are cautioned to only change one aspect of their flying per flight. The tandem pilot usually has a new passenger.  Tandem flying may well be intrinsically a bit more dangerous  than solo. (I doubt we will ever be able to develop statistics on this) Our judgment is the only thing that protects us and our passengers.

 

Here’s a landing accident, another summer mountain thermal site:

 

     Inexperienced pilot flying into an LZ complicated by several groups of  trees.  For his final approach, the pilot was getting advice from an instructor by radio.  As instructed, he burned off altitude before flying through a gap between two stands of trees and then turned left for his landing. in his left turn he failed to allow for wind drift, and was blown towards the trees. The left wingtip caught on a tree and the glider spun to the left, dumping the pilot on the ground. He suffered  a spinal fracture and crushed his heel.

 

The pilot’s comments are richly instructive on several levels:  “This was a basic beginner error. A new approach direction, a plan with more risk than necessary, several distractions at once, and just basic lack of experience.As I had had several sponsors for my flights, the instructor did not know that this was my first time for this particular landing approach. Since I didn’t verbalize my plan to anyone at launch, I didn’t make use of the experience of the other people there. It was not so much the ego thinking I did not need help as a failure to completely see the potential risks and look for guidance. I got caught by something I wasn’t worried about.”

 

Here’s an interesting flight at a high mountain thermal site:

 

The weather had overdeveloped and was now occluded.   Experienced pilot  launched a DHV 2 glider the light downwind conditions, ran hard and long, finally getting into the air. Unfortunately the continuous sink prevented him from reaching the LZ. He turned sharply at treetop level to attempt an uphill landing on a ski slope, and stalled his inside wing,  falling to the ground from 20 feet. He broke both radius and ulna in his arm and had multiple wrist injuries.

 

The most serious problem with this flight was the decision to fly. Others decided against it.  The launch held significant risk at the onset, both of a launch accident and the possibility of not making the LZ. There was minimal hope that the flight would be enjoyable.  We are so often so desperate for air time that we often forget that we fly for fun.  If it ain’t gonna be fun,  it ain’t gonna be worth it.

      One could question whether this pilot had a viable option once in the air.  When rushing downwind there is a tendency to pull in the brakes and fly slowly.  If this were the case, it’s conceivable that a faster downwind airspeed may have allowed the final turn without the collapse.  Also an extremely competent side wind, side hill landing is occasionally better than an uphill, upwind one.  Note that  none of the choices are really any good.  It is always better to wish to be in the sky than it is to wish to be on the ground.

 

                   This year continues to have a lower than average accident rate. Less flying because of poor weather may be a significant factor, but I think by now it is reasonable to infer that as a group we are probably making safer choices in our flying.  I feel that congratulations are in order, but not complacency.  Keep up the good work.  And keep those reports coming!  Thank you all.    

 

**********

 

This has been a very high loss year in the history of US paragliding, with

seven fatal accidents. This is the most we've ever had in one year, but

since the number of pilots is increasing as well, our rate is still lower

than it was in the early years, and remains comparable to motorcycling or

horseback riding.

 

Five deaths have already been reported in previous issues and two more will

be reported next month as the documentation comes in. Meanwhile, it's nice

to remember that most of our mishaps don't end tragically, and to

appreciate the many instructive reports we have received over the year.

 

For example, here is a dreadful situation that ended fairly well. Popular

mountain thermal site. Late afternoon, light conditions:

 

An experienced paraplegic pilot prepared to launch. His practice was to

have an assist from two other pilots on each side, who would hold his

harness on a strap attached to  each carabiner, run with him and release him into the air.

On this occasion, one of the assistants was a new pilot who had never

assisted before. The run needed to be very aggressive, and the new

assistant was unable to release his hand from the harness strap before his feet

left the ground.

 

"I was already over the edge! I suddenly felt the cold chill of death. I

knew that people don't come back from these types of things. I knew there

was no way out, no way back, and I just reached up with my other hand and

closed my eyes. I couldn't believe that such a perfect day could turn to

the end of my life that quickly...." At one point the victim was dangling

700 feet above the slope.

 

The pilot banked left, back into the mountain, perhaps partly because of

the asymmetric weight of the passenger. They crashed into a tall fir tree.

This dislodged the passenger, who then fell 100 feet straight down into a

pile of leaves on the mountainside.

 

In the fall he re-injured an old neck lesion, and spent several days in

traction in the hospital because of a ruptured disc, but had no fractures,

internal damage, or significant neurological damage. The paraplegic pilot

was not injured.

 

This brings up the topic of assisting at launch. Very popular in the early

days of paragliding, it was responsible for several gruesome accidents.

More recently the technique is usually reserved for special circumstances,

such as helping disabled pilots, or occasionally for tandem launches in

strong conditions. The danger is excruciatingly obvious in retrospect, but

hard to imagine before it happens. Assisting at launch is a very serious

undertaking, with possible fatal consequences to the helper. Plan

accordingly. Be certain you can release in time. Your own safety comes

first.

 

Conditions: Popular mixed thermal and ridge site, late summer, light

prevailing winds over the back, several pilots in the air

 

Experienced tandem instructor launches with a passenger into what feel like

mellow thermal conditions, and commences ridge soaring below launch.

Conditions are reasonable enough for the passenger, a first timer, to do a

lot of the steering. About twenty minutes into the flight, while the

instructor was at the controls, a fifty percent deflation of the right

(mountain side) wing occurs. The glider rotates 100 degrees and regains its

form, only to surge and dive toward the mountain on recovery. The pilot

attempted to continue the right turn around to avoid a collision but

impacts a 100 foot tall tree. He is convinced that his left leg broke at

this time. Both pilot and passenger then fell 100 feet to the ground. The

pilot landed on his back, with the passenger on top of him. Both had full

back protection. Evacuation was complex but expeditious. Pilot was found to

have a compound left tibial/fibular fracture and arterial bleeding. The

passenger had a left humeral fracture and a metatarsal fracture.

 

An unusual aspect of this accident was the relatively severe consequences

of the tree encounter. It is much more common for a tree rescue to be

complex and time consuming but the main risk is usually that the treed

pilot disconnects from his gear and then falls to the ground. It is

uncommon to be injured in the collision with the tree, and  unusual to fall

clear to the ground while still in the harness.

 

It is simplistic to suggest that this accident could have been prevented by

flying farther from the terrain. Other pilots were in the air in the same

area and none suffered the turbulence. There has been a lively local discussion about the level of risk posed by light prevailing winds over the back at this site. Are there rare but dangerous isolated downdrafts close to the slope?  Even local experienced pilots disagree. Risk discrimination at this level of subtlety will not be dependable.

 

   Conditions: Inland soaring site, good thermal lift, aerobatics accident

 

A very experienced aerobatics pilot had been borrowing wings for a few

weeks waiting for his new one to arrive and was flying significantly under

the placard range on a DHV 2-3 glider. After two hours of delightful

soaring he flew out over the LZ with about 2000 feet of altitude. He began

an aerobatics routine with a well executed SAT and a few spin rotations. At

500 feet he braked hard for the asymmetric entry in another SAT. Lacking

the momentum necessary, his body climbed toward the outside wing tip, which

deflated, and fell through the lines into a  severe cravat. A severe spiral

ensued with extreme g-loading. He reached for his shoulder mounted reserve

handle but was unable to deploy because of the forces. He reached with both

hands, pulled with all his might, wrenching his left shoulder, and got the

chute deployed out horizontally. Unfortunately the whipping wing wrapped

the chute in the lines and the hard spiral continued to the ground. The

pilot impacted some bushes, suffering a lumbar burst fracture requiring

eight hours of surgery and ten days in the hospital. There was no

neurological damage.

 

This pilot wrote a very comprehensive report

(http://www.flyaboveall.com/matt.htm). I am not qualified to critique the

details of the aerobatics, but feel that many of his conclusions are

generally very helpful to all of us. Summarized, they are:

 

* Too low

* Too light

* Didn't stop to think and set sensible limits

If you are going to do them as doubtless some people will, pick your height

bands for maneuvers, based on height needed for recovery and

predictability.

* Up high, funky SAT's, loops, and spins

* Moderate height- regular SAT's, wingovers and asymmetric spirals

* Down low- less than 500 feet- nothing except for moderately tight turns

* Less than 100 feet- mellow downwind base, final

* Parachute technology is not 100% reliable

(ed. note: remove periods from end of items in the list)

 

Conditions: Summer, full on XC conditions, many pilots in the air

 

Two experienced pilots, friends of each other, one a hang pilot the other a

paraglider, each circled from the 4000 ft MSL launch site to about 10,000

feet. Neither reported having any idea the other was in the vicinity. The

hang glider pilot became preoccupied setting up a wing tip camera

photograph. Suddenly his wing yawed hard to one side, then straightened

back into level flight. He looked up to see his buddy in the air nearby

recovering from a large asymmetric deflation. He realized there had been a

collision. The paraglider pilot seemed to be in control so he continued on

his way flying about 20 miles. He noted that the paraglider seemed to make

a normal landing two miles below. They had no radios.

 

The paraglider pilot was minding his own business at 10,000 feet when he

suddenly experienced a massive asymmetric deflation. As he was recovering

he looked up to see his hang glider buddy departing from his wing tip. He

noted the wing was in a normal configuration, but that two outer A lines

were severed near the canopy and a center B line was severely frayed. Three

C lines were damaged as well.

 

The pilot was almost panic stricken, but flew to a quiet corner of the sky

and worked himself down to an uneventful landing. No one was injured. The

wing was not damaged but many lines needed replacement. The paraglider

pilot felt abandoned by his buddy.

 

A blame discussion ensued with many pilots participating. However, the fact

remained that neither pilot saw the other until after the mid air. To avoid

this kind of interaction we need to carefully maintain awareness at all

times. Clear all of our turns. The sky at 7000' AGL is a very big place but

not necessarily big enough to stop paying attention. Photography in a crowd

is challenging and needs to be carefully considered, since it detracts from

our awareness. Carry a radio to stay informed. Finally, if you hit someone

it's like it is in your car. Stop and talk it over. They may need your

help.

 

   Thanks again for sending in your reports.  It keeps all of us honest to read about the predicaments that smart, careful people find themselves in.      -Pete Reagan

 

**********

 

Mountain site, gentle afternoon thermals

 

       A student pilot with about twenty flights is flying north along a

steep, heavily wooded slope.  He flies into the local house thermal area and

begins a 180 degree turn to the left, away from the ridge.  He is being

followed by a tandem pilot and passenger.  He hears the tandem passenger

scream and looks up and notices them for the first time as they are bearing

down on each other. The tandem pilot tries to turn away from the ridge to

reverse direction and the two aircraft collide.  The tandem duo hits the

solo rig about halfway up the lines and becomes enshrouded in the solo

canopy.  The tandem pilot successfully deploys the reserve and then the solo

glider slips off and deploys his own.  It is not clear what configuration

the solo is in after the impact. All three pilots end up in tall timber

requiring expert tree rescues, but none are injured.  In subsequent

correspondence there appears to be a certain amount of disagreement about

whether the student was thermaling, or whether the tandem could have flown

inside the oncoming solo glider. There is also a certain amount of

discussion about  many less relevant details, and close witnesses appear to

disagree on particulars.

 

Mountain site, Mid Day Thermals, uphill base wind 10 mph

 

Two pilots had a mid air collision. 500' AGL in the crowded house thermal

over launch.  One was climbing in the upwind portion of a right turn going

momentarily straight to compensate for the downwind drift. The other was in

the downwind portion of a right turn at a higher altitude in the same

thermal. The other pilot saw  the first one flying straight and thought they

would miss each other. Whistling loudly, he impacted into the first pilot's

right side leading edge and that pilot was forced into a right turn. There

was no time to evade. He immediately deployed his reserve. The other pilot,

temporarily blinded by the wing, had his helmet ripped off and cleared the

wing after pilot one had  rotated 180 right.  Turning right to face upwind,

pilot one noticed the 7th cell right of center on his leading edge had

sustained substantial damage. The reserve was behind him opening normally.

He felt the tug of the canopy as his wing began to dive down in front. He

collapsed the wing and drifted downwind facing upwind. A gentle landing in 5

foot bushes near launch on his back protection ensued. The other pilot

landed successfully. There were no injuries.

 

Very popular coastal soaring site

 

An advanced parapilot pilot was in the air heading south and had just passed in front of launch. An hang pilot launched and turned south.The hang pilot was distracted for about 10 seconds trying to zip into harness. During this time the left leading edge of the hang glider impacted the paraglider pilot in back. The hang glider yawed and partially stalled, and the pilot dived to recover airspeed. The parapilot's feet dragged across top surface of hang glider, but no entanglement occurred due to absence of top rigging. There were no injuries or reserve deployments. there were witnesses in the air or on the ground. Neither pilot saw it coming. The hang pilot may have been able to see the parapilot’s feet immediately prior to impact if he had been looking up. The pilot had to turn and look back to see what he had impacted.

 

 

In the first report the solo pilot was looking down instead of up and out to

clear his turn. The tandem pilot may have been able to continue north close to

the ridge and passing, in fact, on the right.  In the second report, the lower pilot in the

thermal could have shifted position in the thermal to center his orbit more

congruently with the upper one. They could have each circled wider, and

observed each other more closely, or talked to each other.  Both of these

accidents were "preventable" but occasional mishaps like this are

unfortunately inevitable as more and more people fly.  The third accident is a significantly more complex scenario involving the differences between hang and paraglider traffic.

 

        I'm reporting on collisions twice this spring. We have had several

rather interesting ones and also some near miss reports.  I believe they are

becoming more common.  After  a near miss involving two very experienced

local pilots we've had a lively discussion about right of way rules and

collision avoidance.   I think a more careful discussion of right of way

would be helpful as well as a few comments about communication.

  

      Chris Santacroce teaches that when one turns, one should first look in the desired direction, then weight shift, then turn. This maximizes the chance that you will see other traffic, as well as maximally signaling others of your own intent.  But think about when we learned to drive a car. No one ever has the right of way, but there are many times when we are required to yield it. "Remember, signaling does not give you the right-of-way. You must make sure the way is clear."(California drivers manual)

        Right of way rules are confusing. Steve Roti looked up the right of way rules for competitive sailing and found roughly twenty pages, and they travel in only two dimensions. In general it is clear that there are ridge rules (pass right, turn away from the ridge) and thermal rules ( first  one in the thermal determines the direction of the

turn) . However, it is common to be flying where there is a mixture of ridge

and thermal conditions, and pilots will change rule sets whenever they see

fit. There is no hierarchy between these rule sets and each of us must notice what flight rules another is using. You actually can not assume the other pilot is following any

rules.  Leave enough room, so you have a safe way out even if the other

guy does everything wrong. Finally, ridge lift bands may be wide enough for several "lanes"  so it is not at all clear whether a pilot in an outer lane should go clear into the ridge when he reverses direction just to get to the right of an inner lane pilot.

       These ambiguities are not completely reconcilable.  For better or

worse this means that our safety depends not only in knowing the rules and

heeding them as well as we can, but also in three other things.  First we

need to remain utterly vigilant in traffic.  All of these accidents involve

some delay in becoming aware of the other glider, or understanding its

trajectory.  Second, we need to communicate.  If a mid-air seems possible,

yell.  Annoying someone because you aren't sure they see you

is far preferable to a collision.  Thirdly, I've said it before and I'll say

it again.  Crowded sites will become more common and more dangerous.  Look

for new sites. Fly ones less used.  Take turns at the busy places.

       At busy sites with mixed hang and para traffic it is very important to remain aware of the differences between the two craft.  Hang pilots cannot see upward, especially on launch, and they will have a window of distraction as they pull on their cocoons. Parapilots fly a lot slower.  The third accident was difficult to prevent. Any parapilot  in coastal ridge lift passing in front of a launching hang glider will do well to remember that the hang pilot can’t see him and also may well overtake him from below without ever being able to see him.

         Finally,  note that collisions are more likely than other types of

accidents to result in acrimonious exchanges.  When cars collide police and

insurance settlements happen.  Money changes hands.  So far in our sport it

has not been necessary to assign financial responsibility for a collision.

We therefore have the luxury that we can learn from our mishaps.  Let's take advantage of it.  When a mid-air occurs, both parties will be considered equally responsible. The interaction is a result of actions by both pilots, and almost always they each had options they didn't choose that would have been safer.  Learning to be safe in our sport has far greater value than either shame or self righteousness.

 

      Thanks again, pilots for reporting these near injuries.  We continue

to learn from each one.  Increased safety means we all get to have more fun.

 

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Not Hitting Things

 

        There have been several recent reports of midair collisions, and also some accidents in which pilots have flown into the ground.  So today’s column will be on the topic of not hitting things.  We need to manage only three aspects in order to be safe from this problem.  The first is accurately perceiving our surroundings.  The second is allowing enough room for errors in judgment and for unexpected turbulence.  Third is the Golden Rule.

 

       Mountain site. Mid day thermal conditions:

 

        Relatively new pilot  sank a few hundred feet below launch and then found a good thermal about 300 feet Agl. He started circling right.  Back at the launch elevation he encountered another glider circling left in the same thermal, somewhat higher than he was.  They didn’t have enough time to turn and the higher pilot lodged in the reporter’s upper right  lines near the canopy.  Both pilots deployed reserves landing hooked together and uninjured.

 

        Five wings soaring at a western mountain site with a lot of room.

 

        An inexperienced pilot turned without clearing and flew his wing into another pilot a bit higher. The second pilot was wrapped in the lines and unable to throw his reserve, but yelled at the first pilot to do so. They descended together under one reserve, hitting tall trees then falling into a slot in the forest onto very steep terrain. Neither was injured and they were able to hike back to launch. One glider was totaled.

 

Eastern Mountain Site

 

      A relatively inexperienced paraglider pilot was flying at a fairly popular site when suddenly he was hit from behind by a student hang glider pilot.  He was never aware of the presence of the hang pilot.  He lost control of the wing and spiraled into the forest, sustaining a major laceration of his leg.

 

Desert Thermal Site:

 

    Pilot with about 25 hours of experience attempted a 360 too close to the hill in a tight thermal.  He impacted hard but did a plf and suffered no major injuries.

 

Another Desert Thermal site:

      Inexperienced pilot was crossing a slope and entered moderate sink. He didn’t turn away, attempted a side hill landing.  Unfortunately, the slope was very steep and he fell twenty feet after landing, breaking his ankle and requiring hospitalization.

Beach site:

 

      Fairly experienced pilot on an intermediate glider was doing wingovers close to the ridge. He impacted the top of the hill and slid down the steep slope, sustaining triple tibial fractures, for a 5 day hospitalization and several months off work.

 

       Last summer we reported a high profile accident in which a very experienced pilot  had serious injuries after hitting a mountain thousands of feet above the valley floor. This is a statistically unusual occurrence.Most of the incidents we hear about involve  less spectacular surroundings and pilots with much less experience. 

 

      The key to avoiding this kind of accident is to respect the perceptual learning curve. Learning to fly involves mastering many skills, some of which are quite explicit (coordinating a turn, or centering in a thermal)  but many are quite implicit and never discussed in  a step by step way. An example of this is learning how to see past our own pride to accept advice and help from locally experienced pilots. But one of the most important implicit tasks is learning accurate aerial perception.

         Children learn to perceive partly through experience, and partly by through instruction.  They interact directly with sensory data, and they also organize it according to a scheme that mentors teach them.  Our perception is well trained for our familiar environment.  But when we venture into an unfamiliar setting, we need to learn how to perceive it in a useful way.  Consider how much the skill of surfing depends on a new way to perceive the wave.  Rock climbing skill is very dependent on learning new ways to perceive the rock.  Most of us have no experience with perceiving the environment we enter while in flight,  even though it looks sorta vaguely familiar.

           Our fellow pilots usually don’t help us with this very much. Most experienced pilots are not even aware of the keenness of the perceptual skill they have acquired. Therefore, we need to learn from experience not just the complex stuff, like how to judge what the air might be doing, but also some really elementary stuff. How far away is that hill? How fast is that glider approaching? How big is that bird?  How big are my turns? And how good am I at judging my own perceptual skill level?

        While we are learning these new skills, the only way to remain safe is to maintain a lot of physical space around ourselves.  As we spend a lot of time in the air we will naturally hone our ability to judge size, distance, and speed.  Without even trying we will gradually be able to perform the magic we see our sky gods do.  But it is critical to respect what we 're doing by allowing enough time and margin for it.  Sometimes this means pulling out of heavy traffic that other’s may still seem comfortable in.

        We also need to experience a very subtle but very comprehensive set of social perceptions and expectations. Over several years we improve our ability to estimate what other pilots may do next, and what they expect of us.  We receive periodic reports of hostile comments shouted air to air between hang pilots and parapilots.  There are also reports of intentional aerial hazing.  I am not aware of any serious injuries that this behavior has produced to date. 

        Several factors make it harder for plumbers to get along with boneless chickens. For one thing, people are tribal. We follow the “birds of a feather” rule.  Our gliders behave differently in the air and need different sizes and shapes of airspace. It’s hard for each of us to learn how the other behaves and how we can be most considerate. Even more basic is the fact  that we have to learn to be able to reliably find each other in the sky.  This is a learned skill.  The tension generated by these forces is sometimes unfortunate.   Patience, time, communication and compassion are the elements we will need to overcome it. But it’s worth the trouble. We’ll all have a better time, and some of us will live longer.

       Please keep reporting your accidents.  It does make a difference.  Not all will be reported in the magazine, and occasionally a report will be so altered to protect confidentiality that even the participants won’t recognise it.  But each reported mishap is an opportunity for improvement for all of us.        

 

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November Reports

 

 

I guess I should be careful what I wish for.  I’ve had many reports of accidents and for this I am very grateful.  There are many lessons to be learned.  As I choose what to report for each article I am aware that I am leaving out many very instructive events, or postponing the reporting to a time of year when fewer accidents occur.  Thanks to all of you for your conscientious support of  our safety program.  It always helps to report accidents.  If you don’t read about it in the magazine, it still shows up in the statistical analysis, which is very helpful to instructors and design engineers, as well as the individual pilot.

      Sometimes, questions are raised by reporters about the judgment of instructors whose actions may be viewed as contributing to accidents.  In the interest of increasing the safety of our sport, I do not find it constructive to add to these public reverberations of unfortunate events.  In circumstances when issues seem to center around the actions of instructors, as opposed to pilots in the air, the analysis of the events will take place outside of this column. Please report the concerns. We’re taking it seriously even if you don’t see it in print here.

       There have been many reports this summer of pilots losing control while making a tight turn, or doing wingovers at low speed near the ground.  I am not reporting them all separately.  One more time:  

 

           1. Give yourself adequate ground clearance.

           2. Fly fast enough. 

           3. Don’t turn too sharply.

 

      It’s been a while since I reported a series of launch accidents.  There have been a spate of them:

 

       Late Spring,  Mountain site, fairly light conditions, later in the afternoon, occasional moderate thermal activity:

 

      Intermediate pilot on launch waffling about whether to fly,was set up in a forward position.  A thermal came in and he pulled up the wing and started to run.  Feeling a pull to the left he looked up at the wing, fell into a hole, and dislocated his shoulder.

 

      Winter, midmorning, southern desert site:

    

       Novice pilot  pulls up his brand new wing in a fairly steady 3-7 mph breeze, using a reverse technique.  The wing came up perfectly, but as the pilot turned to run he felt he loaded his right knee at an odd angle and experienced extreme pain.  He sat down immediately.  Orthopedic evaluation revealed a strain that required six weeks of rehabilitation.

 

      Summer morning in the desert, light conditions:

 

       Intermediate pilot pulled up a DHV 1-2 wing in reverse.  He started to run, the wing was overhead but felt soft, and the pilot decided to abort the launch.  He tripped and fell on his left shoulder, experiencing a minor fracture of the humerus near the shoulder.

 

       Summer,mountain site, moderate thermals:

 

       This site is often difficult because of turbulence from trees in front and a common light crosswind. Advanced pilot pulled up in reverse in a moderate cycle.  Early in the run he experienced loss of pressure on one side and decided to abort.  The wing overshot him, he tripped and lost his balance and was dragged through some tree stumps. He suffered multiple rib fractures, a punctured lung and a broken scapula for a four day hospitalization.

 

        Coastal site, spring afternoon:

 

         Tandem passenger faints on launch and  the pilot and passenger fall, sliding about fifty feet down a grassy slope and suffering abrasions.  The passenger is later found to have a cardiac arrhythmia causing fainting episodes.

 

      When hang pilots choose to take that very first step off launch, they are fully committed to flight, since a safe abort is rarely possible.  In paragliding it is a little easier, but these events illustrate how important it is to respect the danger of aborting a launch run.  Aborting an inflation prior to a run is safer, though a few years ago I reported a leg fracture following a pull-up in a strong cross wind where the pilot simply tried to kill the sail and was dragged.

       I do not have simple advice, but here are some points to ponder:

 

1.  Do everything possible to make an abort unnecessary.  This includes careful layout and preflight, choosing the right time to launch, accurate assessment of the wind direction and understanding of how the glider will come up. It means keeping the glider weighted at all times after pulling up.  It means a very committed run, and a careful assessment of the terrain ahead prior to the inflation.

 

2.  Think about how you will stop your launch during the run, if necessary, considering the terrain and the wind.  Would a PLF be a good idea?  How should one stop the glider?

 

3.  On critiquing this article, Chris Santacroce had the following comments: 

“Looking ahead,  keeping your chest forward while taking big steps can cure any launch challenge. If the glider is off to the side  -throwing your weight forward will move you under the glider naturally. With a tip deflation, weighting the glider will fix the deflation faster than brake. If the glider is hanging back, weighting the glider and moving forward deliberately will help it up.”

 

 

4.  In general, paragliding is a rather cerebral sport. But my observation is that on launch, grace, balance, and quick responses count.  Evaluate your own level of athleticism, and adjust your margin accordingly. Just because a twenty-five year old expert skier can launch safely in a complex site doesn’t mean that you can.  Keeping in shape, and practicing agility will increase your safety.    

 

     Here’s a more complex launch accident:

 

      Summer glass off.  Popular, somewhat shallow launch site with an irregular gravel run out and growing  trees fairly low down in front causing irregular penetration of light thermals.

 

        Intermediate pilot had two unsuccessful inflations.  He then laid out the glider again and pulled up the wing.  At the moment, the wind was cross from the right and the right tip collapsed, reinflated, and the wing swung right to face the wind. The pilot turned and started and started to run straight downhill.  His feet left the ground and then his body swung right in the air to get under the right-flying wing.  The left wing deflated as the pilot applied left brake to steer straight out.  He pendulumed back to the left as the left side reinflated,  and the right side collapsed.  The wing was then observed to surge and the pilot impacted on his seat in a ditch suffering three spinal fractures but no neurologic damage.  He was airlifted out and required a significant hospitalization and surgical stabilization.

 

      There were numerous witnesses and this accident has been extensively discussed.  This extremely popular site has seen many biffed launches, but most of them have ended  comically embarrassing, instead of damaging.  In this particular case the most important factor was probably that the pilot ran left while the wing flew right, and there was a large yaw to the left as soon as the pilot left the ground.  This initiated the chain of loss of control.   So to add to my general comments about launch safety:

 

 

5.  Prevent sub optimal wing loading on launch. This occurs a) when people try to kite

in wind that is too weak or too variable to sustain a stable inflation, b)if

one pulls the glider up unevenly,c) during the turn from reverse to forward,

especially if brakes need to be exchanged, and d) during the run, because of

sub optimal launch commitment, starting the run at the very end of the cycle,

or not running in the same direction that the glider is flying.

 

6. Prevent sub optimal acceleration by minimizing  braking while on the run until just before lift-off.

 

       These difficulties result in a glider flying at sub optimal speed and

attitude right after lift-off. As a general rule, brakes off once airborne

is the best solution to this problem, because it gives you best glide, and therefore the quickest escape from the hill. But this is counter-intuitive on a shallow

slope when you feel like clawing your way into the air. Unfortunately, when

one launches under an unstable canopy there are also all sorts of little

corrections that need to be made, so "brakes off" all by itself, is very

inadequate and misleading advice, though the general concept is good.

 

7. Finally, during this last event the launch was crowded and there were many people yelling advice to pilots as they got underway. This practice is misguided.  Launching pilots are busy. They are probably unable to use yelled advice.  Constructive comment is probably best saved until after the attempt is over, most ideally when the pilot requests critique.

      Thanks to all for reporting your accidents. It’s extremely helpful. Keep it up.

 

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Odd Ends

 

 

        We are seeing a lot of reports now and pilots are more conscientiously describing near misses as well. I think this level of openness will improve our safety in the future. Here are a selection of stories from the last few months:

 

     Visiting pilot launches at a coastal ridge soaring site in perfect conditions.  After launch he initiates a left turn but notices that his brake won’t release after the turn. He pulls on the toggle to try to release it but things only get worse and his brake stays deeply applied. He is now in a steep left turn.  Radical weight shift  allows him to miss one tree but he immediately hits some power lines. Luckily he is unhurt on the ground on a highway embankment. The power company is called and his glider sustains moderate damage. The entire incident unfolded in fifteen seconds.  Later equipment inspection suggested the brake line might have been caught in the pulley system, off the groove in the pulley.

 

Inexperienced pilot, coastal soaring site:

 

     Inexperienced pilot  flew downwind of the LZ in a strong wind and couldn't make it back to the normal spot. He tried to cross a large number of houses attempting to reach an emergency beach LZ, but did not have enough altitude.At the last moment at approximately. 30 feet and behind a beach front 2 story house , he made an aggressive turn downwind, and flew into some power lines,  all of the lines were severed in the first cascade above the risers. The pilot then fell onto his back from approximately. 15 feet  onto asphalt pavement suffering a sternal fracture and bilateral elbow lacerations needing repair.  Observers felt there were large backyards available as emergency LZ's

 

Mountain thermal site, experienced pilot reporting:

 

     "I looked up after launching to see a knot between a brake line and one of the D-riser lines.  My glider wanted to turn which I countered with weight shift.  When I had lots of terrain clearance, I yanked alternately on the D-riser and on the brake to try to free the tangle.  Encouraged because the knot seemed to be giving way, and thinking I might yet be able to soar on this flight, I gave another sharp pull on the brake which broke one of the lines going to one of the upper cascades on the trailing edge.

Resigned now to flying directly to a valley landing, I pulled out my camera to shoot a photo of my deformed wing with lines streaming back from the trailing edge.  Although to me the wing now looked worse, it flew better and no longer wanted to turn.  Having fixed my glider, I carefully did some gentle weight shift turns and set up for an

uneventful landing on a long stretch of the road in the valley."

 

Advanced pilot reporting, mountain thermal site:

 

     "I had pulled up my DHV 2 wing with A's and C's in a light short cycle, then set it back down about 15 feet downhill.  Subsequent cycles were tediously

infrequent and very light.  I then pulled the wing up with crossed hands,

A's only, and insufficiently scrutinized the wing.  Observers yelled

something which I didn't comprehend.  I had succeeded in launching with a

serious line tangle involving at least three C's and two D's on the left wing.

  I couldn't see any cause for the tangle from my perspective in flight. 

The wing required speed bar and right-weight shift to fly and maintain

direction.  My glide ratio proved insufficient to clear the rim above the

valley.  After all attempts to free the tangle proved fruitless, I elected a

"between the trees" landing in an extremely tight place in the forest.  My

approach was perfectly executed, excepting that I eased off on the speed bar

when effecting a left turn.  The wing went parachutal, probably 30 feet to

the ground.  I did not effectively execute an adequate PLF such that my

impact was a little too far back to execute a roll.  The shock, despite my

Cocoon harness foam protection, was astounding."  The pilot broke his wrist, requiring surgery, and wrenched his neck and back.