http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... 476#208476
BubbleBoy wrote:From: Birdman Academy <birdmanacademy>
To: pomic Gaskill Mark <airutah>; Wow <flyhigh013>; Shawna Pendleton <shawna>; Jeffrey Davies <clubdurango>
Cc: Mike Meier <Mike>; Paul Voight <flyhigh>; Jeff O'Brien <jeffobrien4>
Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 2:40:32 PM
Subject: Hg accident
I witnessed the accident from the bottom of the south side and a former student witnessed it from the top, mere feet away from impact.
According to Jeff (I did not witness this firsthand in that I was at the bottom of the training hill) there had been yelling back and forth amongst those flying to "fly the pattern".
Just before the midair, the hang glider was flying east toward the paraglider (which was flying west).
According to the ridge rules 2 pilots flying straight at each other should pass each other on the right. It looked like the hang glider attempted to pass the paraglider inside the ridge rather than outside. This action would have been OK if the hang glider was higher or if there had been more distance of separation between the para and the hang in question.
At the moment of impact it appeared that the hang was turning left (toward the hill) to avoid midair but too late. The hang glider (flying east) collided with the paraglider (flying west), near the "scar" just to the east of the hang gliding launch/landing area, at a height above the ridge of approximately 25 feet. The hang glider hit somewhere around the left side wire/ corner bracket junction colliding with the mid to right sections of the paraglider canopy.
This rotated the hang glider left into a straight downwind heading, stalled, with a wing bank angle of near 90 degrees vertical.
The hang glider hit the ground near the left wingtip and quickly rotated around the wingtip in a chopping or tomahawk action that accelerated the pilot forward into the leading edge and nose wires. The result was a broken neck. In addition to the broken neck there was a deep straight cut into the neck, from somewhere near just under the pilots right ear to around the middle of the left side of his neck (diagonally across). This cut was consistent with a nose wire coming in contact with the pilots neck at a very high rate of speed.
I addition to that there was also a straight cut almost completely through the pilots right arm. The arm was severed in a straight line at least 3/4 of the way through and was hanging on by a "thread". The injuries to the arm are also consistent with a high speed impact with a nose wire in that the arm was almost cut clean off in a very straight line. Death was instant and painless.
The impact broke a down tube, bent a leading edge as well as bending the keel. The keel of the glider was bent into somewhat of a "flattened u" in that both the nose and tail of the keel were bent upwards.
I was below, so not in a good position to see if the paraglider hit a bubble like it is said on the news. Regardless of weather or not the paraglider hit a bubble, I believe this accident was caused by the hang glider NOT following the ridge rules. In that there had also been tensions amongst pilots (yelling "fly the pattern" beforehand) it may have been that the hang glider was attempting to push himself into position to stay in the ridge lift, and the paraglider appeared to be flying the pattern and did not budge.
The moral of the story is:
Fly the freaking pattern!
Don't fly pissed off! Please go away before you kill yourself or someone else.
Don't try to push someone out of position or force yourself into position on the ridge.
If traffic gets too hairy, don't fly or if you are already in the air GO LAND BELOW!!!!!!!
Always leave yourself an escape route, and use it when you can (even at the cost of sinking out OH NO!!). Use your escape route when it is still comfortable to do so, before you get pinned and are screwed and on the news…
Shawna, I am OK with you forwarding this to the whole club, but if you want to wait so that my perception does not skew someone else's before they have a chance to file a report, that is OK. The above report is graphic in nature, but I believe that reading about how graphic this is, it may really help people be more cautious and courteous to others while flying.
Kevin Koonce
USHPA Advanced Pilot Rating
USHPA Certified Basic Instructor
Point of the Mountain Certified Instructor
Birdman Academy Hang Gliding,L.L.C.
Birdmanacademy.net
801.448.2494