USHPA releases accident report
But not meltdown-level disgusted by the pretentiousness, stupidity, obfuscations, omissions, restricted accessibility, threat of expulsion for any public discussion? Go figure.Scot Trueblood - 2015/06/19 00:32:12 UTC
Estero, Florida
Platform towing
I am dismayed, saddened, and somewhat angered to read this accident report.
Atrocity.such a tragedy...
- Arys Moorhead, ya mean? The eleven year old kid victim of the atrocity whom u$hPa doesn't dignify with a name and just barely mentions in the "REPORT"?...and my heart goes out to the young fellow and his family...
- Any comment on the fact that his mom, Michelle Schneider, returned home minus her kid under the impression that he'd died during a skydiving lesson?
Family? Possibly. Friends? Fuck 'em - the local ones at least. As far as I'm concerned they're co-conspirators in the cover-up. The driver was probably a friend and he's a perp....as well as the friends and family of Kelly.
Fuck very experienced pilots. There isn't shit worth knowing in this game that can't and shouldn't be picked up in a year or two by anybody who goes into it in a major way.He was obviously a very experienced pilot...
Bull fucking shit. This guy was NOT a good pilot occasionally doing dumb things. This guy was a dumb jock running a commercial operation with cheap junk for equipment who never once in his entire career had the words "What if?" enter his "thought" processes. His entire hang gliding career was one big dumb thing that finally went into gear....and the problem is: occasionally, good pilots do dumb things.
I'm concerned that he was able to fuck up everything to the extent that he could put a glider up at an ideal tow site in totally benign conditions using the safest flavor of launch on the planet, make it to 670 feet - well over three times typical kill zone altitude, have pretty much all fuckin' afternoon to deal with the situation that started manifesting itself at that altitude, and get a glider totally demolished and two people killed.My concern is: Was this preventable?
Duh. What do think when somebody shows up in the emergency room with his right hand swollen up from a rattlesnake bite? Preventable possibly? Where are you on Pearl Harbor?I think: YES
- Even if you have a primary spotter the way Kelly and his student pilot did?First and foremost: Platform towing without a dedicated observer is just plain stupid.
- Let's assume for a moment that it is. Then what about u$hPa's complete, total, decades long failure to MANDATE a dedicated observer for commercial tandem thrill ride operations?
Took those motherfuckers two seconds to enact the Bob Kuczewski Mandatory Helmet At All Times While Hooked Into A Glider Regulation without citing - or having - one single incident from the combined world histories of hang and para gliding to justify the action and without a nanosecond's worth of thought about negative consequences - like increase in unhooked launches would be an obvious no brainer with no shortage of actual precedents.
Here's the bold decisive stance u$hPa took with respect to your position:
English translation: Keep doing whatever the fuck you feel like. What happens in Vegas/u$hPa...The USHPA Safety & Training, Towing and Tandem Committees are working together on an operations advisory bulletin regarding tandem and towing operations to assist you in reducing your risk. Recommendations for reduction of risk in tandem/towing operations will likely include:
- Recommendation that payout winch tow operations utilize knowledgeable and trained spotters capable of observing the entire flight and releasing tow tension by both dropping system drag and severing the tow line
Really? How 'bout:To me, the most disturbing part of the accident report is:"The first indication of the lockout to the tow vehicle operator was seeing the glider impact the ground." UNBELIEVABLE !!
- the fact immediately reported the hell all over the mainstream media but conveniently not mentioned by u$hPa that this was also the first indication to the tow vehicle operator that he still had a glider connected to his winch subsequent to the point at which he swerved into the middle of the lakebed for line retrieval sixty-two seconds prior?
- all these fuckin' idiot tug drivers who can fix whatever's going on back there by giving us the rope and, just to make extra sure, mandate that we all fly with fishing line that's so safe that it's off the bottom of the FAA legal range? How do you explain anybody ever being scratched at any aerotow operation anywhere?
Which means that every second climbing through the kill zone is dangerous. Bit of a balance thing going on there. What makes the tow the most dangerous is also exactly the same thing that gives the driver the best visibility of what's going on.While aerotow tugs can utilize a rear-view mirror quite effectively, this is because the tow rope is only 200' long, and never changes.
Second thought... Nah, this is lose/lose. All these total fucking assholes are wired to fix whatever's going on back there by giving us the rope. There's no question whatsoever that you could cut aerotow crashes at least fifty percent just by...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/skysailingtowing/message/6726
Give 'em the rope? When?
William Olive - 2005/02/11 08:59:57 UTC
I give 'em the rope if they drop a tip (seriously drop a tip), or take off stalled. You will NEVER be thanked for it, for often they will bend some tube.
...taking the fucking mirrors off the fucking Dragonflies. In a perfect world we'd have competent drivers and mirrors would be good things but you go to war with the army you've got...Bill Bryden - 1999/06
Rob Richardson, a dedicated instructor, died in an aerotowing accident at his flight park in Arizona. He was conducting an instructional tandem aerotow flight and was in the process of launching from a ground launch vehicle when the accident occurred.
Rob had started to launch once but a premature towline release terminated this effort after only a few meters into the launch roll-out. It is suspected the cart was rolled backwards a bit and the towline was reattached to begin the launch process again. During the tug's roll-out for the second launch attempt, the tug pilot observed the glider clear the runway dust and then begin a left bank with no immediate correction. At that point he noticed that the launch cart was hanging below the glider and immediately released his end of the 240 ft. towline. The tug never left the ground and tug pilot watched the glider continue a hard bank to the left achieving an altitude of approximately 25 feet. Impact was on the left wing and then the nose of the glider. Rob was killed immediately from severe neck and head trauma.
If he's looking NEARLY straight up then it can't be a VERTICAL angle, can it?Platform towing often involves towline distances of well over 1km. At Paradise Hang Gliding, we routinely performed tows to 2500'+AGL, where towline length often exceeded our measured length to the 1st splice (different colored towline) of 3300'. At this point, we had the glider at a vertical angle above the boat which would require craning of the tow operator's neck to look nearly straight up...
And if the:...and if you looked away for a moment, you may have trouble finding the glider again against varying sky colors.
- students are just people of varying ages that makes the glider even harder to find again against the varying sky colors.
- is that fuckin' high then just how important should it be for a driver or spotter to be able to know exactly where it is?
- What critical problems are you expecting to crop up when the glider's at two thousand feet? Cite an actual incident from somewhere sometime. If you know your approximate line angle and approximately how much line you've paid out then you know approximately where the glider is - and have a pretty goddam good idea what its status is.The idea of using a mirror, even with radio communication, is a complete joke.
This glider climbed to 670 feet before this total clusterfuck started going south as a consequence of its driver assuming that the glider was off tow for a reason about which we've been hearing deafening silence for the better part of three months and the outrageous u$hPa bald-faced LIE that:
- WHAT radio communication? Why aren't you asking why, if:The tow vehicle then began turning for the downwind leg of the tow as the glider continued flying upwind.
the tandem instructor WASN'T observed making radio communications to the tow vehicle operator through a hand held radio (mounted on his right shoulder strap) that had been radio checked just prior to the flight at any time during the extremely long period he had available to fix things that really needed to be fixed?Several times during the flight, the tandem instructor was observed making radio communications to the tow vehicle operator through a hand held radio (mounted on his right shoulder strap) that had been radio checked just prior to the flight.
Fuck unbelievably talented pilots. On 1990/05/27 I helped extract that unbelievably talented pilot - and the torn up demo glider he'd been flying - from a tree a significant ways into the woods after he totally missed the Hyner LZ which was an eighteen hundred plus foot conventional aviation airstrip which you can just about hit with a rock from launch 1275 vertical feet up.Ask Jon Woiwode, an unbelievably talented pilot...
Instead of being on a quest to understand what the fuck he was doing. He was an unbelievably talented thermal / XC comp pilot who fucked up bigtime twice that I know of on basic Hang Two stuff - the stuff that ACTUALLY MATTERS in this game....on a quest to break any records possible...
No he didn't. There's no such thing as a platform tow accident. You gotta try hard to fuck one of those up. Talk to Sam Kellner if you really wanna do it wrong right....had a horrible platform tow accident...
No observer whatsoever. But that wasn't one of the core problems....in the Red Desert of Wyoming on July 7, 2005. No dedicated observer...
Yeah, didn't break when it was supposed to. Probable Tad-O-Link. Fuck that guy....questionable weak link.
Flew it into a lockout by moving and trying to stay straight behind the truck in a strong crosswind.Dove into the ground...
Pressure....under full tow power.
Bullshit.In surgery, they were digging fragments of his heel bone out of his shoulder, and he somehow survived. As of a couple of years ago, he had finally lost one of his legs to persistent infection, and will most likely never fly again. He does not remember his accident...
http://ozreport.com/9.191
John Woiwode's Lockout
John Woiwode - 2005/09/18 21:00
I remember the launch and the sequential events quite clearly. Further corroboration of my memory of the events was supplied by the hard facts on the ground: i.e. when Ken Cavanaugh carefully scrutinized the scene of the accident afterwards, he noted that the tow bridle was released and found near the site of impact. I remember releasing before impact.
Bullshit. There WERE NO lessons to be learned....and therefore the lessons to be learned must be inferred.
That's all we need to read. That was fuckin' clueless. I don't really give much of a flying fuck about anything that happened after that.At about thirty feet, I drifted lightly to the right with a soft south push. It was a gentle deviation, so I applied a correction that stopped the right drift and eventually brought me back in line with the trailer.
NEVER.So, can we lay this one to rest?
Third.Having a 2nd...
- That will NEVER fucking happen because......party, dedicated observer facing rearward at all times, whether they are in control of the towline tension or not, should be required for all commercial tandem flight operations.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=27736
Increase in our USHpA dues
...it would be an admission that if there'd been a dedicated spotter that kid would be heading back to the Grand Canyon with his family on summer vacation right now.Mark G. Forbes - 2012/12/20 06:21:33 UTC
There are also numerous legal issues associated with accident reports, which we're still wrestling with. It's a trade-off between informing our members so they can avoid those kinds of accidents in the future, and exposing ourselves to even more lawsuits by giving plaintiff's attorneys more ammunition to shoot at us.
Imagine a report that concludes, "If we'd had a procedure "x" in place, then it would have probably prevented this accident. And we're going to put that procedure in place at the next BOD meeting." Good info, and what we want to be able to convey. But what comes out at trial is, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, my client suffered injury because USHPA knew or should have known that a safety procedure was not in place, and was therefore negligent and at fault." We're constantly walking this line between full disclosure and handing out nooses at the hangmen's convention.
- So this would be a definite lifesaver for platform tow operations. But it should only be MANDATORY for all commercial tandem flight operations. Non commercial tandem, commercial and recreational solo flight operations - fuck it. Kill whomever you feel like. Bullshit.
- So we had this Hang Five comp rockstar doing EXACTLY what he wanted to on this tow:
Hang Five SkyGod's call is to continue the tow.At about thirty feet, I drifted lightly to the right with a soft south push. It was a gentle deviation, so I applied a correction that stopped the right drift and eventually brought me back in line with the trailer. I was still climbing ok as the line paid out. It was at this time, lined up square with the road and climbing slowly, that I felt a distinct pull on the glider from the tow line, and a rapid acceleration. My fleeting thought at that moment was that I was ok for a bit because the glider was straight and in line with the tow vehicle. I noted that I was catching up to the vehicle/trailer.
If we'd just had a third party dedicated observer facing rearward at all times, whether or not he'd been in control of the towline tension, in those next fractions of seconds (fractions of secondS?) to take over from the Hang Five SkyGod as Pilot In Command, maybe use his razor-sharp cutting tool to slash through the line in an instant, everything would've turned out just fine and John could've gotten back on the trailer to do the same thing over and possibly achieve better results.The next fractions of seconds happened in a blur, but I agree that I must have locked out to the left. The increase in speed exacerbated the speed of the lock out and its disastrous consequences. I recall pulling my release, but it was far too late. I had the distinct feeling that my glider was going upside down, which in retrospect must have been some sort of vertical spiral just before impact. Somehow, in a reaction I do not recall, I got my feet under me just before impact, which saved my life.
Sorry, Scot. John had the ability to make the easy reach to his easily reachable standard three-loop arrangement release and immediately terminate the tow. And he, in fact, DID THAT. You can't compensate for incompetence and stupidity in the guy flying the glider by throwing another total idiot into the equation. Just accept the fact that if we're gonna permit incompetent idiots to hook up to ropes on the flats and run off ramps on the slopes we're gonna mangle and kill them at easily predictable frequencies.They must have the ability to immediately terminate the tow or sever the towline.
A halfway competent observer would've aborted the tow at the instant he saw John start "CORRECTING" his downwind drift and moving to line up with the truck. He'd have waved John off and instructed the driver to abort.
And a halfway competent observer would've looked at Kelly's release, radio configuration, hook knife; slashed all the tires on the truck and trailer; and made a 911 call to child protection services.
You use competent aviation people to PREVENT critical situations from evolving - not to try to react to them. This bullshit you're proposing is totally analogous to aborting launch runs after the "pilot" becomes aware that he's not hooked in.
Do try to spell his name right consistently.In the case of Kelley...
What was wrong with the 53 seconds between the points at which the truck swerved to the left and the glider went into cinder block mode? When you look at THESE:...Harrison, it sounds like roughly 9 seconds elapsed where this would have prevented the tragedy.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8857/18290284792_24ac8847ee_o.png
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8819/18267685796_64156e9c91_o.png
tracks everything looks just fine to you right up until the final nine second / 390 foot plummet?
Yeah, big fuckin' surprise. When you're gonna run an operation with an incompetent driver pulling an incompetent pilot on total crap equipment throw another cook into the can of worms. What could it possibly hurt?Regardless of all other factors, in my opinion, this is the most important.
Tell ya sumpin', Scot... People who know what the fuck they're talking about NEVER qualify their statements and positions with "in my opinion".
It wasn't a tow release - it was a locking mechanism. Opening would've been a malfunction.However, this does not address the issue of the malfunctioning tow release.
Remind me to not send any people of varying ages to Paradise Hang Gliding.The report says it was a 2 string release, which we have used often, and usually starts as a 3 string release, until the first (largest) line wears out, then it becomes a 2 string.
- Yeah, just like Davis Dead-On Straub's bent pin wonders. HUNDREDS of times with no problems - in totally benign circumstances at normal release altitude after the Dragonfly's throttled back.No big deal, it still works great.
- Yeah, who could possibly imagine a platform tow situation in which anyone would have any use for...
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=30306
Non-fatal crash in Tres Pinos, CA
...any actual load capacity?Scott Howard - 2014/11/06 16:06:31 UTC
...the best i can do for now is a clip of the day b4 when i told the instructor about release problem. (still released by normal method but had to yank 3 times on release to get it to release.)
I don't give a flying fuck if your piece o' shit "WORKS GREAT". The Wanderer that George Worthington was killed in "WORKED GREAT" all the way up to the point at which it didn't. I wanna know what it's been load tested / certified to. What pound weak link are you using? How much pull do you need to blow your former three-string at that tension? Have you ever heard of anyone using a payout winch experiencing a line jam?
- Ya think?The problems can develop if you do not rig the release correctly...
- And you consider a three-string that's deteriorated to a two-string to be a component of correct rigging?
Can you think of any reasonably good solutions......such as letting the eye of the release pin pass through the first string.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8322057772/
...to a problem like that?
You talked to Pat Denevan about this "preflight" "checklist"...Thankfully we never did this, as one of our preflight checklist items was to check the tow release pin for freedom of movement.
163-20728
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8655/16487364578_83864d7bac_o.png
...idea of yours?
Oh. You were doing some of the things that ACTUAL PILOTS are ALWAYS supposed to. In hang gliding. Amazing. Think that might have anything to do with the reason Scot Trueblood's here on The Davis Show writing about Kelly Harrison and Kelly Harrison isn't here on The Davis Show writing about Scot Trueblood?After an initial check of the release every day, we simply checked, BEFORE EVERY FLIGHT, the correct routing/rigging of the bridle and release, including the position of the pin, and the release cord.
No. Any thoughts on why not? Maybe 'cause what Kelly did was so obviously, monumentally, dumbfoundingly stupid that it would've opened up a liability sinkhole big enough to swallow the Jean Dry Lake Bed whole?Is there any elaboration on the "Repair" top the tow bridle?
No you haven't. I one hundred percent guarantee you that those failures were totally explicable. This ain't rocket science and even in rocket science everything is totally explicable.In my platform towing experience, I have had 3 inexplicable failures to release of a correctly rigged bridle.
Ever bother to think what would happen in a low level lockout in which you had to literally let go of the bar in order to use one hand to pull the pin? Have you bothered to look at any of Aleksey's recent posts? Just kidding.In each case, I was at the top of the tow, straight into the wind, and literally let go of the bar in order to put both hands on the bridle, using one to hold the bridle and the other to pull the pin.
Lucky you - and your people of varying ages.In all 3 cases, time was on my side, as I was not in a lockout situation.
So tell me about some of the incidents in which the razor-sharp cutting tools were used to slash through the lines in instants. I just love adding those stories to my collection.In all 3 cases, I released and had an uneventful flight. In all 3 cases, use of the hook knife was an option, but was unnecessary.
So you've never actually had a release failure. You had an issue that you haven't been able to identify but you got the releases to work. Could've been fatal in a low level lockout but it's pretty much statistically impossible to line up a rare release issue with a low level lockout 'cause those themselves are massively rare. Which is a real good thing 'cause they tend to not be survivable even when using bulletproof equipment.
Kelly, in stark contrast, was running a total clusterfuck and what happened was pretty much inevitable.
Yeah. See what a big issue internal resistance can be on multi-string releases, people of varying ages?One thing we learned while flying in saltwater was: Keep the release wet ! If it dried out for an hour or two between tows, salt crystals made the lines quite sticky.
Ya know...If necessary, we would open a bottle of fresh water to wet the release down, check it for function, and then TOW !
A spinnaker shackle...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aerotowrelease/8305428629/
...isn't an ideal glider tow release but it ain't bad and Wichard was somehow able to engineer it such that it doesn't have issues with saltwater.
And - if you MUST use the three-ring configuration for your release - the thought has NEVER occurred to you to use an ACTUAL...
...three-RING release? Stainless steel rings 'cause you're working in a saltwater environment? But I guess you've established a long track record with your cheap strings crap wearing out the third strings, keeping them wet, dissolving out salt crystals with fresh water, checking function... Proven system that works. Why mess with success? If it ain't broke...
- Fuck experience. You name me one tow crash in the history of the sport that happened because somebody involved was INEXPERIENCED. This game has EVERYTHING to do with COMPETENCE and virtually NOTHING to do with EXPERIENCE. Quest Air and Mission Soaring Center should have removed any vestiges of doubts about that issue on 2013/02/02, and 2013/06/15 respectively.In addition, it should be stressed to all platform commercial operations, no matter how experienced, that crosswind/circular tow patterns are less than ideal, and should be avoided if at all possible.
- Duh.
- And if you need to stress this to all platform commercial operations what is that telling us about all platform commercial operations? Are they really all that fucking superior to us weekend warrior muppets?
- It's ALWAYS *POSSIBLE* to avoid crosswind/circular tow patterns. Nobody ever got scratched as a consequence of NOT launching a hang glider. The idea is to get the fuckin' glider to altitude and nobody needs to be told that if he has the luxury of an environment which allows him one long run straight into the wind he should take it. And if somebody's too fucking stupid to understand the threat of extended wheels in ANY tow operation - let alone circuit or step - how much good do you think you're accomplishing by posting something like this?
- And this was NEVER a circuit tow. It was basically a shortish upwind run with an obtuse 123 degree bend in the middle. The tow driver assumed the tow was over when he still had twenty-three hundred feet of very useable lakebed left straight upwind of him. And the glider kept proceeding in pretty much the same direction until it was overwhelmed by snagged towline tension shortly prior to impact.
And here, again, is your central thesis:
And you haven't been able to cite ONE incident from either your own or anyone else's operation in which a dedicated observer has been of the slightest use.First and foremost: Platform towing without a dedicated observer is just plain stupid.
And mostly clueless. See above.Just my humble opinion.
, Not really...
We'll let the American Hand Gliding Federation handle that end of things. They gave us a call last night.
