Please tell what happened and how it might have been avoided. Names should be ommitted. This forum should help others learn from mistakes that caused or nearly caused a mishap.
It appeared to me that we had several pilots boating around in the Kagel/Trash environs despite a: Helicopter warning, helicopter approach, and a helicopter top lading on Kagel.
I'm not sure if we have a set rule here, but Crestline tells their pilots this:
If a helicopter lands on Kagel, Best you LAND NOW!
When the Sheriff drove in to our Sylmar LZ and told us of the situation, the club and student frequencies where told to LAND NOW. I explained to the Sheriff that we where trained to LAND NOW in this situation. However I was apparently wrong. A PG and several HG's continued to boat and float around the area after the helicopter top landed!
Notice the altitude the helicopter left the launch for the hospital. It didn't climb out. It made a low altitude straight shot. For that reason we should especially LAND NOW when one of our brothern is being rescued.
OP wrote:It appeared to me that we had several pilots boating around in the Kagel/Trash environs despite a: Helicopter warning, helicopter approach, and a helicopter top lading on Kagel..........
What warning? Nobody in the LZ bothered to pick up a radio and provide information to the three pilots in the air. I flew directly over the 'scene' and did not see any helicopter. Not one of the 4 people on launch who were looking up at me wave me off or motioned that there was a problem. None of them picked up a radio and provided any information. The ONLY report of an 'alleged' helicopter came from DTeal and it wasn't even clear from Dave's report whether he had factual confirmation of any helicopter.
So, of the three of us in the air who were ALL on radio--none of us heard anything credible. Please talk to the club's safety officer about handling this in the future. We do have a safety officer, don't we?
Club Rules are very clear about this. On more than one occasion SHGA pilots have lost flying privileges for 3 months, due to breaking this rule. It has been considered one of the club's highest priority rules for many years.
I think confusion on this rule comes from the fact that there have been a number of helicopter operations (in the past couple years) in which direct radio communications have been established between the helicopter pilot and a SHGA representative. In these specific cases, the helicopter pilots were willing to work around the hang gliders and approved continued our continued flying. On some occasions they limited us to remaining in certain areas.
Although this was great for us in the short term, it could easily lead pilots to believe that our flying around helicopter rescues or fire fighting activities is ok.
In the case of Eric's accident on Sunday, I was on radio guiding in the helicopter pilot and he was quite willing to work around the hang gliders, so I made no real effort to communicate with gliders in the air. We prevented any more launches until after the helicopter left, and nearly all pilots got out of the air.
In order to prevent problems with our rescue agencies and the FAA, and to eliminate any chance of a punitive action from the club officers, it's important that all pilots follow the club's rule on this unless, they have first hand information from a reliable source that the helicopter pilot has approved our flying activities. This is where your radio can come in handy.
Eric is at Holy Cross Hospital last night and this morning having test done. He has no visible injuries (except a hurt toe), but he is having repetitive short term memory lapse, indicative of a concussion). His parents are with him as of last night. Darryl broke down his glider for him and Andrea Margolin took good care of Eric until the helicopter arrived.
I chose to go to Dockweiler instead of Kagel on Sunday to get more time in on the Freedom, so I was unaware of an accident until now. What happened? Blown launch? Contact with the hill flying too close?
Hope the only injury remains a hurt toe and he recovers quickly...
As some of you know, I work with Erik. Our boss spoke with Erik this morning. Erik confirmed the concussion and no broken bones. Erik said that his parents are with him and if all goes well, he may be released today.
Can anyone elaborate a little more on what happened for those of us who were not there?
It would be best to hear from someone who saw the whole thing, like Greg Angston. I've been told that he was preparing to launch and waiting for a lighter cycle. When he got one, he said clear and his wireman (Greg) cleared behind his wing. During that process, Greg heard a light yelp from Eric, and looked around to see Eric getting lifted upwards from launch with his right wing rising more than his left wing. Greg was unsure as to whether Eric had initiated his launch run or simply got picked up early.
Eric was unable to get out of the left turn, which put him back into the top of the hill, to the left of launch.
Witnesses said Eric was uninjured, lucid, embarrassed and understandbly upset at what just happened. Upon learning that Eric was ok, the other pilots proceeded to launch, leaving Andrea Margolin the task of bringing Eric back to the lz by truck.
During the time that followed, Eric showed signs of increasing confusion over the incident and was unable to remember even the most recent conversations that took place after the incident. This frightened Andrea and she alerted me to this when I arrived shortly after.
Although Eric appeared in very good physical condition, we elected not to have Andrea drive Eric to the nearest hospital due to the bumpy ride down and the long transportation time. Instead I called directly to Camp 9 to request an aerial transport to Holy Cross Hospital.
Camp 9 was without a helicopter and requested I call 911 for the quickest dispatch.
A short time later, a county fire department helicopter from Palmdale, approached from the north and I guided him to the location via aircraft radio. During that process he advised me that he would remain leeward of the mountain to avoid endangering the hang gliders.
A short time later, Eric was airlifted to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills. He's scheduled for an MRI this morning and his mother reports that his short term memory appears to be improving.
True, there wasn't a clear call that the helicopter was on route. More like a rumor. But when the Sikorsky S-70 lands on Kagel, we should all do the Crestline protocall. That is Big-ears for PGs and legs out of the harness for HGs.
It appeared that for a solid 15 minutes after the landing there where stills a few people in the air.
I was almost done setting up when I heard Erik's glider hit the ground, so I didn't see anything that led up to impact. I ran down to assist and Erik seemed fine, only complaining about his right toe. Once we verified that he had no broken bones, we got him unhooked and I carried his glider up to the setup area. We continued to quiz him about possible injuries, but he had none that were obvious. Rob apparently observed the crash from the air, and I provided a status report about Erik to the other pilots (via the club frequency) that he was fine. Once Greg and I were sure he was ok, we continued to setup and launch. I didn't know anything about a helicopter until I was in the LZ and saw it top land.
Joe - I'd like to know more about how you contacted Camp 9 and the helicopter pilot? Did you have an air-band radio with you? What frequency? 121.5 Mhz?
DT
I did see the crash from the air but can't add much. I was flying toward launch from the east and saw Erik flying east from launch very close to the hill. I didn't realize at first that he had just lanched and thought that he was somehow attempting a top landing. But then I saw him turning left into the hill, hitting it nose first and realized that it was a blown launch. It didn't look like a hard hit from my perspective but it had to hurt.
Later that evening Andrea stepped me through how his physical condition progressed from just regular "ran your bell" to more concerning concussion like symptoms. Scary stuff because she didn't know how quickly and how far the symptoms would progress.
Because he got significantly airborne and because his downwind impact was in at least medium winds, he hit hard. This is the way it looked to me from about 300' over launch. I have some far-away video of the impact that I will give to Erik if he wants it.
Any major crash is very serious but we really hope this turns out to be just quickly and completely healing injuries. I imagine the frustration and sadness he must feel and hope he can get over that quickly too.
As a pilot in the L/Z during this time, I have to say OUR info was sketchy and conflicting, at best. We'd heard that Erik was okay and Andrea was driving him down, an ambulance was waiting at the gate, and that a heli was going to airlift him. Because we were only semi-informed, it didn't seem to be a good idea to get on the radio with more vague and lame comments than we already made and heard all afternoon long...
At a certain point, someone pointed out that GREBLO was on launch. Once we knew that, we also knew that the situation was COVERED and we didn't need to be involved, so we did what we always do...
I've seen that huge X at AJX being unrolled across the L/Z. it's not a bad idea. we have a number of pilots who don't even USE radio. a visual "GO LAND" could be useful to anyone w/in eyeshot of the L/Z.
I just wanted to let everyone know I’m doing fine and am recovering. As mentioned above, I was kept in the ER overnight Sunday for observation after a concussion and released Monday afternoon. They did a second MRI on Monday morning, as well as more x-rays , and everything came out clean. I’m still getting headaches and have some bruises along the right side of my body, but have no broken bones and everything works.
The only real residual effect is that I still have no memory of Sunday’s events. I remember arriving at the LZ that morning and then seeing Joe in the ER, but nothing in between. I’m missing a few bits from last week too. I haven’t gotten my gear yet, but I think I may have had my camera on board. Hopefully I’ll get a better idea of what happened if there’s retrievable video, but otherwise I know as much as I’ve heard from others and what I’ve read here. It’s like reading about someone else.
I’d like to thank everyone for the kind words and for helping me try and piece together what happened. Huge thanks also to Andrea and Joe (and others who I may not remember) who were with me when I was the most loopy.
Eric I'm glad you're okay, if is just the short-term memory you lost consider yourself lucky, I myself looking for the magic pill where I could wipe out some of mine bad memories, luckily I'm in that age where mother nature start erasing mine bad memories, so you see there is hope as you get older, you don't want to remember everything.
Eric was at the LZ today, he looks and sounds good. I'd say a pretty good outcome considering what the result could have been.
There exists a video of the event, I haven't seen it. However hearing Greblo's explanation.... In my personal case, Eric took one for the team. A small mistake, which I am equally guilty of, that would have been okay in 99% of the occasions, didn't work out.
I'm glad of our "safety and incidents" in the forum. Like Newton, a chance to stand on the shoulders of others to see farther. As Eric is my flying friend and the minor slip was something which I wouldn't even notice in my own behavior; I take the lesson very seriously.
