http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=35776
MN's recreational land use laws
Mark G. Forbes - 2017/12/15 05:44:45 UTC
Some years ago, a pilot's glider got caught in a dust devil on launch. He was hanging on, trying to keep it from blowing away and a spectator ran up to help. As the glider spun around the leading edge caught the spectator and flung him quite a ways, resulting in multiple internal injuries and broken bones. USHPA's insurance paid a significant settlement on that claim, citing the pilot's and club's failure to properly segregate the spectators away from the launch area. (And now you know why we're making such a fuss about that in risk management plans!)
Some years ago...
2010/07/03. But make sure you don't get more specific than "some years ago". We certainly wouldn't wanna make it easier for people to start narrowing in and learning the FACTS of this one.
...a pilot's glider...
As opposed to a motorcyclist's glider.
...got caught in a dust devil...
How? Why? What wasn't done properly to make sure that didn't happen and set a potentially deadly sequence of events into motion?
...on launch.
Oh. It was on launch. Pilot's probably hooked in but there should've been plenty of crew types around to properly handle the situation.
He was hanging on, trying to keep it from blowing away...
- Oh. Guess he wasn't hooked in then. Wonder why the glider wasn't moved OFF launch as the dust devil moved up the slope. Or maybe - though I doubt it - it was coming in from behind. And if that were the case wouldn't it likely have been playing havoc with the gliders in line?
- To where? Any place where it might have slammed into another glider, a vehicle, another pilot or innocent bystander, shorted out some powerlines and started a wildfire?
- Was he the ONLY one hanging on, trying to keep it from blowing away? If not can you please tell us the qualifications of any other relevant individuals?
...and a spectator ran up to help.
To help with WHAT? The pilot obviously had things under control with his glider on launch and it's hard to believe that other pilots wouldn't have been on the glider before the spectator got there if there'd been a significant problem? And why didn't the pilot politely wave him off, let him know that he was totally OK with the situation, happens all the time?
As the glider spun around...
Spun around? On launch? Maybe the situation was a bit stickier than I've been assuming. But hell, it was just a dust devil. And we still have no suggestion that things weren't totally manageable as they were.
...the leading edge caught the spectator and flung him quite a ways, resulting in multiple internal injuries and broken bones.
Stupid spectator. Kinda served him right then. Running in to play hero on launch when his "help" was neither solicited nor needed and the situation was so well in hand that none of the pilots in the launch area had thought it necessary to lift a finger.
So then what happened, Mark? The pilot just continued holding onto the nose as the dust devil passed by otherwise completely harmlessly? Like in a zillion other Chelan launch dust devil incidents?
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=21868
Don't Forget your Hang Check!
Eric Hinrichs - 2011/05/13 21:31:06 UTC
I went to Chelan for the Nationals in '95 as a free flyer. They were requiring everyone to use the Australian method, and you were also not allowed to carry a glider without being hooked in. This was different for me, I hook in and do a full hang check just behind launch right before I go. I was also taught to do a hooked in check right before starting my run, lifting or letting the wind lift the glider to feel the tug of the leg loops.
So I used their method and I'm hooked in, carrying my glider to launch and someone yells "Dust devil!" Everyone around runs for their gliders (most of which are tied down) and I'm left standing alone in the middle of the butte with a huge monster wandering around. I heard later that it was well over three hundred feet tall, and some saw lightning at the top. After that it was clear that no one is going to decide for me or deride me for my own safety methods, someone else's could have easily got me killed.
Sounds like at least one of your certified instructors and Chelan comp pilots might have appreciated even a bit of spectator assistance under similar circumstances. Also sounds like this guy's life was seriously endangered by one of the safety rules your...
http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=924
Tragedy at Team Challenge
Davis Straub - 2005/10/01 23:12:07 UTC
Well, very simply we could make a new rule for competition. If you are seen in your harness but not hooked into your glider you are automatically disqualified.
...stupid dickheaded operatives decided to shove down everybody's throats.
USHPA's insurance paid a significant settlement on that claim, citing the pilot's and club's failure to properly segregate the spectators away from the launch area.
Well yeah. Everybody understands that we're supposed and need to properly segregate the spectators away from the launch area ('specially the black ones). Just no telling what can happen when ya don't properly segregate the spectators away from the launch area. Also the tie-down and staging areas - 'cause the same thing can happen in those areas. Also any place a hang glider might land. And since this asshole spectator...
...ran up to help...
...RAN UP to help ya also should use barbed wire to restrict these spectators to their designated segregation areas. Probably a good idea to arm all authorized hang glider pilots with tasers to deal with any spectators who might break through the primary defenses.
By the way... Can you show me the u$hPa SOP in place at the time defining the PROPER segregation radius for spectators at launch? How 'bout the one that came out right after this incident? Or, failing that, maybe just a launch site or two running operations with proper segregation procedures in place? And maybe the security badges they use to help sort the spectators we need to confine in the segregation areas out from the pilots we'll permit to run up and help us control our gliders when they're getting hit by dust devils.
How 'bout this:
eleven year old hang gliding student? He's OK to assist with the glider being spun by the dust devil on launch 'cause he has a thirty day membership (and a parent or legal guardian has signed the waiver). Right Mark? But his dad needs to be segregated away from the gliders 'cause he might not know how to handle the situation - not having been properly trained and qualified like the rest of us.
And now that I think about it...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8857/18290284792_24ac8847ee_o.png
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Shouldn't we be segregating spectators out of entire dry lakebeds when we're running typical platform launch operations?
http://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5788/23461251751_e98b9c7500_o.png
I think we lucked out pretty good with just a twofer on that one.
Meanwhile, back in the reality galaxy...
01-00000
There were four individuals, including that one, in place on the glider, IN THE TIE-DOWN AREA, bracing for action as the dusty approached. All of them were holding onto wires as it started overpowering them. Nobody unexpectedly RAN up to help as the glider started to spin.
05-00123
And I know of no shred of evidence to indicate that the guy or anyone of his contingent was there as a spectator. It's a public space and it's neither anyone's goddam business nor of the slightest relevance what purpose(s) anybody had for being there - whether intending to fly or not. (And note that there is not now nor ever has been any u$hPa training and certification for safely dealing with gliders being spun by dust devils - in the air or on the ground.)
Also... We have a good idea who the pilot/owner and victim were but there were definitely (at least) three individuals on that glider who WEREN'T its pilot/owner. How come we've never heard anything about the other two? 'Cause the official sleazebag u$hPa narrative on this one is that everything would've been just fine if the only guy at the glider had just held on and had the common sense to segregate the stupid wuffos from the launch area? While the TRUTH of the matter is that this was a perfect storm event, and in the course of everything we have on the video everything was done as right, safely, appropriately as the situation allowed, and some guy who was just doing everything possible to help keep things under control got massively demolished anyway.
Also note the second glider in the video:
08-00410
That glider is PROBABLY still tied down but there are two people - one of them highly likely the owner/pilot, the other who the fuck cares - who obviously don't feel supremely confident in the security of the tie-down with that much force in play.
- They obviously know they're in danger with Glider 1 being spun around like a child's toy.
- If they had had confidence in the tie-down they'd have helped swarm Glider 1 and might well have been the extra needed to keep things under control and turn this into a non event.
As the glider spun around the leading edge caught the spectator...
Yeah, keep referring to him as "the spectator" - motherfucker. Same way you motherfuckers referred to li'l Arys Moorhead as Kelly Harrison's "11 year old student" - without ever even dignifying him with his actual name. Well, guess that was the defining episode of his life and what the public will only remember him as. (What lessons do you think he likely took away from the session?)
...and flung him quite a ways...
Bullshit.
21-00728
He was violently slammed down pretty much in place by contact with the underside of the starboard wing as it was about three quarters of the way through its first (clockwise) revolution.
...resulting in multiple internal injuries and broken bones.
And make sure not to mention anything about the major brain damage.
USHPA's insurance paid a significant settlement on that claim, citing the pilot's and club's failure to properly segregate the spectators away from the launch area.
1. Repeat. He wasn't a spectator and this wasn't the launch area.
2. Chelan Butte is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife property. Show me the rules which authorize assholes with hang gliders to tell other park users where they can and can't go.
3. In what area should the spectators have been cordoned off to insure their safety if that dust devil had sucked the glider up a hundred feet?
Was this little kid:
07-1412
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13-1525
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15-1620
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5590/14374149620_03c742c998_o.png
properly segregated from the Lockout Mountain Flight Park ramp by one of your three Region 10 Directors a bit over 15 months after the Chelan incident?
4. That was a serious EMERGENCY situation. People do what they have to under the circumstances. If there's a kid trapped in a burning building you ignore the "No Trespassing" signs, hop the fence, and smash down the door with whatever's available. Regular rules don't apply and violations don't get prosecuted.
Everything was done as right as could be expected as that one materialized and progressed. If they had had more "spectators" available they might have been able to keep the wing under control.
With the benefit of hindsight - and ignoring the two individuals on the other glider who proved not to be needed on the other glider - the right call would've been for everybody to get way the fuck clear of the glider. So how come you're not putting out an advisory to that effect? 'Cause in the other 99.9 percent of such situations that would be the best option for maximizing dangers to participants, innocent bystanders, pets, livestock, vehicles, property, powerlines? 'Cause the entire membership would finally be outraged enough to tell you and Tim to go fuck yourselves?
I've had my grounded glider hit by dust devils twice. Once detensioned in the Woodstock LZ breakdown area and once on a cart in the launch staging area at Ridgely. In both cases the grass was nice and green, the dusties were invisible, and I didn't know what was going on until the first one moved off and over the dry dirt entrance road and the second one had been doing its thing for a while I clung to the nose wires.
The right call is ALWAYS to get as much weight and muscle as is available and possible on the glider and recognize the range of possible tradeoffs.
(And now you know why we're making such a fuss about that in risk management plans!)
'Cause you're not and can't be in the business of keeping pilots "safe" - as stepping into that morass would be a recipe for extinction of our association? So instead you step into the total bullshit of risk management plans which entail shredding all crash and incident reports, misrepresenting the facts of the incidents you're unable to bury, making sure you never actually address any actual problems, come down like the Wrath of God on anybody who presents anything faintly resembling an actual solution to anything?
Anybody else suspect that u$hPa may have paid this guy a thousand bucks to pull the video out of public view to facilitate their outrageous lies about this incident?
C.J. Sturtevant - 1985/09
The Best Nationals Ever
The first day the pilots started setting up as soon as they arrived on top, before the pilots' meeting. Everyone got a lot of sprinting practice as dust devils whirled across the top of the butte, threatening gliders and carrying off loose bags and clothing. Walt catches on fast; from then on it was meeting first, then set up. That lowered the anxiety level considerably!
Tuesday was, in the estimation of Dr. Weather, a 100-mile day, so the goal was set at Reardan, just over 100 miles away as the glider flies... Kevin Bye, in particular, found it rough going; he and his ProDawn happened upon one of those infamous Chelan "killer thermals," which tumbled the glider and broke the leading edge. Kevin deployed his chute and landed unharmed just north of Almira, about 50 miles out from the butte.
Sunday, the final day...
About 4:00 we. heard via CB radio that a glider was under canopy out by Mansfield. Alegra Davidson's ProDawn had been tumbled in a dust devil several thousand feet above the Flats, she had lost hold of her control bar and was unable to regain it so she threw her chute. Unfortunately, because she was tumbling, the lanyard wrapped around her upper body, breaking five of her ribs and essentially tying her fast to her glider. When she landed the keel did some serious damage to her foot, and she was taken by ambulance to the Chelan Hospital. She was transferred. to Wenatchee, and about a week after the meet ended she flew home to Connecticut for surgery on her foot.
Until now I've been thinking that this was just a shit happens / asteroid incident that nobody lacking a crystal ball could've done anything about. I no longer feel that way.
http://www.westcoastsoaringclub.com/forumnew/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5959
Chelan Butte Dust Devil Blender....
Martin Henry - 2010/07/08 15:46 UTC
What pilots need to realize is the top of the Butte acts like a magnifying glass and is the focal point where the thermals finally break contact with the mountain. Devils forming on the surrounding slopes accumulate on the top. I believe this video was shot close to 3pm... a very bad time to be sitting around waiting to fly.
This has been a KNOWN serious issue with Chelan since the beginning of time and I know of no other sites which rank so much as a distant second. Chelan's getting gravitated to and flown most in the conditions most likely to generate potentially lethal dust devils. And thus that threat needs to and can be mitigated in those peak soaring / XC conditions.
- Treat all gliders like they're about to be hit.
- Post a watch with a bullhorn on top to monitor what's happening on the windward slope.
- Make sure tie-downs are freakin' bulletproof.
- Minimize the:
-- numbers of gliders unsecured at any given moment
-- time gliders are unsecured through efficient launch management
- Require four-man crews on gliders being moved to launch.
All this is cheap in comparison to what happened to that guy and what it cost the insurance company in dollars. Plus it might well pay for itself just in terms of prevented glider damage.
I'm thinking that this incident could've been neutralized just with a watch. With just a few more seconds of lead time than they probably had that crew, or just one individual, could've simply walked the glider out of the dust devil's path - which was slow and pretty predictable in everything we can see.
OK Mark. Now let's do this scenario...
I'm a Hang Five fully paid up current u$hPa member in good standing flying at a u$hPa sanctioned comp at Chelan Butte - and I've signed the waiver. I'm well aware of the history of and danger posed by dust devils at this site. And I've made my recommendations on how to manage the issue reasonably safely. And you motherfuckers have, of course, pissed all over me the way you do when anybody presents solid ideas for dealing with anything for the reasons you've publicly stated on The Davis Show - if you fix any problem you'll be sued out of existence for the negligence of not having implemented the fix before the previous six easily preventable fatalities.
I have MY glider safely secured in the tie-down area but as I'm strolling back to it the scenario of the video starts playing out. Everything's the same 'cept I beat the "spectator" to the outboard starboard wing and things unfold otherwise exactly as in the original. Or maybe we'll make it a little nobler by putting li'l Tony:
75-02800
into immediate striking range. And I get likewise demolished.
I'm gonna sue your fuckin' criminally negligent asses out of existence. And the waiver I've signed is totally 100.00 percent useless to you 'cause I'm doing absolutely nothing you motherfuckers define as "PARTICIPATION IN THE SPORT" and my status, qualifications as a PILOT have shit to do with anything. And I'm gonna have the corresponding same video stills (not to mention the archived video itself) to show the court and public just how well your statements line up with what actually happened.
P.S. Anybody else find it the tiniest bit odd that we've never been informed of the identities of any of the glider people in the video? Let alone heard any statements on the incident? A thanks or expression of sympathy to the guy who got his life destroyed assisting a glider person as best was possible?
), but this footage does nothing to indicate this day is dangerous for PG's. The best days I've flown in Chelan have had dusties like that one cruising through launch regularly starting @ ~ 11pm, not to mention monsters all over the flats. As with HG's you just gotta be careful when your near the ground.
