Kite Strings

Frederic Bourgault - 2012/05/02 19:31:02

Re: [SFBAPG] Fatal Accident at Mount Woodside

Yep, I was there on launch all ready to take off on my tandem for a training flight with another pilot...

When I had arrived at take off just before, I saw two hang gliders rigged, a male passenger (the boyfriend) being helped into a harness and a young smiling woman wearing a helmet and hang glider harness ready to go and waiting on take off. Nicole McLearn was sitting on takeoff observing a friend in the air and coaching on radio.

My buddy and I proceeded to get set quickly and we had to make a little bit of room for the first hang glider when he moved into position for launch. The pilot and a buddy (the pilot of the hang glider who was going to take the boyfriend up) then called in the female passenger (who was standing with her boyfriend at the edge of takeoff enjoying the views) to join them under to wing to get ready to launch. They coached her on how the launch was going to take place. I wasn't paying too much attention then as I was right behind the glider and hooked to my wing and my passenger buddy and I were performing our own last checks.

I started looking up when they started running and it appeared that they had run much lower than usual, but something else was more unusual. I immediately said "Wow she's hanging very low!" (in retrospect she must have been hanging at the end of her arms to handles on the back of the pilot's harness) to which the other HG pilot replied, "She's not hooked in. SHIT!"

The situation immediately became dire! We could see the pilot trying to hook his legs around the torso of the hanging passenger right after they had taken off. Then it appeared that somehow they got a better grip of each other as they were flying away. For a bit we were hoping that perhaps they could make it landing as we watched in awe. Within a minute of flying though we witnessed in horror the dreadful sight of the passenger falling for what appeared to be a very long time, from maybe over three hundred metres high! We all exclaimed "No!" which was repeated many times by the boyfriend...

We then got into emergency mode and contacted search-and-rescue and the emergency services. We had to wait on launch for a while for the police to arrive so we could give them directions on where to search. The pilot, obviously distraught, was with them. He told me he had tried but failed to grab the passenger's carabiner while flying with his other hand in the bumpy air and to hook it to his leg strap so at least she wouldn't fall away. He also regretted with hindsight not having turned back into the hill.

We sent a PG pilot to fly over the area and with about eleven other PG pilots equipped with radios and GPS, we spent the rest of the afternoon searching the high probability area. A chopper came to help for a while. Some of the scrub we were bashing through was quite thick and it felt like looking for a needle in a haystack. They were also waiting to get an infrared detector sent in from Kamloops.

I was impressed with the search and rescue mobile command center they had at the bottom of the hill. I think by the end they had about 42 official SAR volunteers on the ground. Around 7:30 pm we got the news that the was had been found in a clear cut area where we had been looking, near a shoe that Alex Raymont had found earlier. The shoe was in fact the pilot's. We didn't have this information earlier, but we had learned by then that he had lost both shoes during the incident as the passenger was sliding down his body and hanging for dear life.

I had entertain a small hope that maybe she could have miraculously survived if the conditions had been just right, like a steep soft and moist terrain, but no such luck! I really feel for her family and especially the boyfriend. It was really hard to take, back on launch when, on a few occasions after she had fallen, he was yelling for her to hang on and that he loved her!...

As pilots we are aware of the risks we are taking, but a paying tourists passenger, although they sign a waiver for possible mishaps, even serious ones, they are not signing for negligence on the part of the pilot. In this case, such a useless loss, could have been prevented by a simple "hang check", and two experienced pilots failed to implement the buddy system. Also "Plan B's" should not be left to improvisation on the spot during an emergency. There's no time left to think then. Knowing to turn around into the hill or the trees in case of such an event should be automatic and have been at least mentally rehearsed many times in scenarios.

Check your pins, straps, wing, AND your buddy's, and fly safe!

Take care everyone.

Kelly Sinoski - 2012/05/03 14:56
The Vancouver Sun

Swallowed memory card still in pilot's stomach, X-ray reveals
Hang glider pilot's instructor's license suspended

Hang gliding pilot Jon Orders has had his tandem instruction certification suspended following the tragic death of a 27-year-old woman at Mount Woodside last weekend.

Margit Nance, executive-director of the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, said the suspension is effective immediately. Orders was charged with obstructing justice after swallowing a memory card that may contain evidence of the fatal flight. All of his equipment remains in police custody.

The pilot was originally remanded in custody for three days, but RCMP Cpl. Tammy Hollingsworth said police had still not "retrieved" the card from Orders by the time he appeared in Chilliwack Provincial Court for a bail hearing Wednesday. The hearing has been rescheduled for Friday.

Orders has been X-rayed and police have confirmed the memory card is inside him, according to a CBC report.

Orders, 50, the owner and operator of Vancouver Hang Gliding, is a 16-year veteran of the sport. His website says photos and videos are available "using a specially mounted camera pole that captures you, your pilot and the amazing scenery around you."

The pilot was on a tandem flight at Mount Woodside last Saturday when his passenger, Lenami Godinez, became detached from the glider. The pair struggled desperately to hold on to each other but Godinez slipped, grabbing Orders' feet in a last-ditch attempt to hang on, before falling 300 metres to her death.

Her body was found seven hours later, about twenty metres from one of Orders' shoes.

Her death is the fifth hang gliding fatality in Canada and third in B.C. over the past decade.

The hang-gliding association's Nance said the organization's board of directors and members "are in deep shock" as a result of the tragic accident and have been gathering facts about what happened. She said the board will wait for the conclusion of the investigation to determine any additional disciplinary measures, which could include stripping Orders of all ratings and expelling him from the association.

HPAC has named Martin Henry, a master-rated hang-gliding pilot with more than thirty years experience and a past-president of HPAC, as the accident investigator for the association, Jason Warner, safety chairman, will assist.

There have been other tragedies involving tandem hang-gliding flights.

In 2002, a pilot and student were being towed by an ultralight on a tandem training flight near Fort Langley when the tow line snapped and the glider spiralled out of control.

William Allen Woloshyniuk, 40, of Coquitlam and his student, Victor Douglas Cox, also 40, of Cumberland on Vancouver Island, both fell 300 metres, struck a tree and died.

Altogether, hang-gliding accidents across Canada between 2002 and 2012 have resulted in two serious injuries and five fatalities, including the three in B.C.

There were two other B.C. fatalities before 2002. Two years earlier, John Ames, a hang-gliding student, had a heart attack in the air. That crash, at the Fort Langley sea plane base, killed Ames and instructor Raymond Smith.

Christian Williams - 2012/05/03 17:58:18 UTC

I always make this argument about now.

All pilots who launch unhooked failed to do a last-minute hook-in check.
No pilot who has ever launched unhooked did a last-minute hook-in check.
All other preventative procedures except the last-minute hook-in check have failed at least once in the real world.

If these statements are valid, there is no need to perform anything but a last-minute hook-in check before lifting the glider for launch.
(If you set the glider down, you must confirm you are hooked in again each time you pick it up). Simple as that.

Furthermore, the smartest thing a hang glider pilot can do is cleanse his mind of all other preventatives. Forget getting in your harness early, forget post-it notes, forget electronic alarm systems, etc.

Why? Because all such procedures produce only psychological protection--the sensation of safety. That sensation is what causes smart people to fail to do the last-minute hook-in check (which everyone who ever launched unhooked failed to do).

Therefore, do only the last-minute hook-in check.

###

But can't you increase safety by doing a hook-in check three or four or five times at various stages during the prelaunch sequence? It must increase safety.

Nope. Logically it's a complete waste of time. Each of those checks--as you rig up, as you hang-check, even as you pick up and set down the glider multiple times waiting for a thermal at launch--is a separate incident. Those incidents are absolutely unrelated to the incident of actual launch. They are actually distractions.

Tad Eareckson - 2012/05/03 23:00:01 UTC

Kelly Sinoski <ksinoski@vancouversun.com>

Godinez fatality

Howdy,

My name is Tad Eareckson, I live in Maryland, and I flew hang gliders from 1980 through to the end of the 2008 season.

By that point I was so fed up with the incompetence, apathy, stupidity, corruption, and blatantly illegal behavior of the forces controlling this sport and the resulting easily preventable crashes, manglings, and deaths that I started bringing my concerns to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Of course those ten miles south of useless bastards did absolutely nothing and Yours Truly, not surprisingly, found his flying career effectively over - courtesy of the tight-knit hang gliding community about which one has heard so much since last weekend.

The issue which resulted in the termination of Lenami Godinez's life Saturday - despite what Jason Warner, Margit Nance, and other lowlife coverup artists at HPAC would have the press and public believe - is a very common, well known, and deadly phenomenon in this sport.

When you see a statement like THIS:

"This has never happened in the history of the sport here in Canada," Nance told ABCNews.com, referring to a passenger falling off of a tandem hang glider. "This is so anomalous, which is why everyone is in totally shock. How is this possible? It's incomprehensible."

think tobacco executive being shocked, SHOCKED upon being presented with irrefutable evidence that the company's product was linked to a lung cancer death.

Anyway...

The good news is that this issue is very easily addressed.

If you go to:

http://www.ushpa.aero/documents/sop/sop-12-02.pdf

and check out the pilot rating requirements you will note one common to all - Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced:

WITH EACH FLIGHT, DEMONSTRATES A METHOD OF ESTABLISHING THAT THE PILOT IS HOOKED IN *JUST* *PRIOR* *TO* *LAUNCH*.

This was amended to the requirements in 1981/05 and that month's issue of USHGA's Hang Gliding magazine included an article announcing it and making clear the rationale and intent behind it. I've posted a transcription of it at:

http://www.kitestrings.org/post1362.html#p1362

This IS the way - THE ONLY WAY - to safely address this easily committed but deadly oversight.

The action performed by the pilot in this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHWbu0su1fA


video at seven seconds - a near effortless lift of the glider to feel the tension of the suspension within a second of commitment to launch - is the technique I myself used for every foot launch I executed in the course of my flying career after having been informed of it in the fall of 1980. It's not something that one remembers or forgets - it's an automatic muscle memory action which one uses as the initiation of the launch sequence.

That action is problematic for some solo pilots in some circumstances and would not be a good solution for tandem flights but there are many easy checks that ANYONE can do within five or ten seconds of launch.

The bad news (finally) is that 99 percent of hang gliding people are total morons - including / especially the ones administering programs and working as instructors - and there has NEVER, in the 31 years since the revision went into place, been any measurable effort to implement the requirements.

Schools and instructors continued to operate as before, ignoring the requirements and teaching people to assemble, preflight, and hook into their gliders and check connections behind launch, then move into launch position and run off the slope, ramp, cliff with no further connection check under the assumption that they've done everything right three, five, ten minutes ago and nothing has happened in the meantime to disrupt their procedures.

So, in summary, what got Lenami Godinez killed on Saturday was NOT that Jon Orders neglected to hook her in behind launch. That's a very easy mistake that even the most careful and conscientious of us humans can make. What got her killed was that Jon did NOTHING to CHECK that she was hooked in at launch position in he final five seconds before commencing the run.

And he didn't just happen to forget to hook her in AND forget to check. He, like 99 percent of the total morons who fly these things, has never once in his entire (now over) flying career EVER checked.

And the reason he never once in his entire flying career ever checked is because the grossly negligent HPAC slimeballs who are currently working overtime feeding you guys a load of crap about how SHOCKED they all are that something like this could happen and scapegoating the slimeball card swallowing tandem pilot are also the ones who certified the slimeball card swallowing tandem pilot without ever teaching him or requiring him to perform a safe, sane launch procedure.

Unless some HPAC heads get put on pikes where they belong there WILL BE another whitewash, NOTHING will change for the positive in the way of procedures, and there WILL BE another Eleni Zeri / Lenami Godinez carbon copy five or ten years from now.

I've been in this game a LONG time, I know where a LOT of skeletons are buried, I can put my finger on more documentation than you can imagine in a heartbeat, and I would be DELIGHTED to help y'all do some serious afflicting of the comfortable.

Thanks much for your attention and the good reporting you've done so far,
Tad

Frederic Bourgault - 2012/05/02 19:31:02

I wasn't paying too much attention then as I was right behind the glider and hooked to my wing and my passenger buddy and I were performing our own last checks.

Alan Deikman - 2012/05/03 19:45:15 UTC
Fremont, California

Christian Williams - 2012/05/03 17:58:18 UTC

All pilots who launch unhooked failed to do a last-minute hook-in check.
No pilot who has ever launched unhooked did a last-minute hook-in check.
All other preventative procedures except the last-minute hook-in check have failed at least once in the real world.

In a rational world this really should be the end of the discussion. Unfortunately this is not a rational world. You are going up against an argument on par with a religion, and my experience is that never works.

BTW, assembling the harness into the glider at setup as per the "Aussie method" works really well for me. I don't rely on it to prevent FTHI, but it makes it easier to do harness preflight and get into it. After that I may unhook it if the conditions of the carry-to-launch make that advisable (rare for me but it happens). For FTHI: last-30-second hook check - always. My view is someone unable or unwilling to do that shouldn't be rated.

Davis Straub - 2012/05/04 14:31:33 UTC
Quest Air

Hook in the harness to the glider and never walk around with the harness unhooked.

Basically one has to be very very specific about what one is talking about when you are talking in general about safety.

Foot launch on a hill side/cliff with tandem passengers and side by side harnesses is a much different safety problem than tandem flights with over under harness at a flight park.

I certainly agree that a check list is an appropriate tool for a commercial hill side tandem operation where the public is brought aboard.

Steve Seibel - 2012/05/03 20:33:45 UTC

Last-minute hang check?

Christian Williams - 2012/05/03 17:58:18 UTC

I always make this argument about now.

All pilots who launch unhooked failed to do a last-minute hook-in check.
No pilot who has ever launched unhooked did a last-minute hook-in check.
All other preventative procedures except the last-minute hook-in check have failed at least once in the real world.

If these statements are valid, there is no need to perform anything but a last-minute hook-in check before lifting the glider for launch.
(If you set the glider down, you must confirm you are hooked in again each time you pick it up). Simple as that.

I disagree. It's not always that clear-cut. You don't always know when is the last time you are lifting the glider before launch.

For example in the first case I described above, where I hooked in while the glider was behind my car, nose-to-wind, after disconnecting the nose from the rope tied to my car, I didn't know when was going to be the last time I picked up the glider. The base bar (wheels) came on and off the ground several times as I moved the glider out from behind my car, into the wind, and out to launch in the strong wind.

Once I was out the full force of the wind, out from behind my car, I really did not want to turn around and look at the caribiner - I needed to focus on keeping the nose low in the strong wind.

Nor was I comfortable lifting the glider off my shoulders to tension the hang strap - I needed to keep the nose low so the glider had some weight on my shoulders to deal with the strong, gusty wind, till I began the launch run.

So the last-minute hang check system has just failed.

If you really define "last minute" as being the last time the base bar comes off the ground before launch.

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

Maybe someone else with more skill or dexterity would have had no problem doing a last-minute full-fledged hang check while standing with the nose pointing into a strong gusty wind, but not me.

I think it is reasonable and helpful, not an undesirable distraction, to develop some habits to help lead to the desired result (being hooked in) BEFORE the last-minute hang check.

For me personally, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that I will NEVER forget to do the last-minute hang check...

...or that I will never choose to move it up to BEFORE the last minute - at which point it becomes less fail-safe and we have more motivation for developing other helpful habits.

I suppose maybe I could reach back there and tug on something even while concentrating on keeping the nose-low into the wind.

Luen Miller - 1994/11

After a short flight the pilot carried his glider back up a slope to relaunch. The wind was "about ten miles per hour or so, blowing straight in." Just before launch he reached back to make sure his carabiner was locked. A "crosswind" blew through, his right wing lifted, and before he was able to react he was gusted sixty feet to the left side of launch into a pile of "nasty-looking rocks." He suffered a compound fracture (bone sticking out through the skin) of his upper right leg. "Rookie mistake cost me my job and my summer. I have a lot of medical bills and will be on crutches for about five months."

It's just that sometimes you literally do not know when will be the last time you pick up the bar.

So you are going to reach back and tug each time as you lift the bar two or three times, each time moving the glider a short distance? Or you'll skip one time, sure that you'll be putting the bar back down, and then suddenly everything is balanced and perfect and the wind is right and the glider is on your shoulders and now you are going to put the bar back down and do a last-minute hang check, because you skipped it the last time you lifted the bar up, even though you checked it the two or three times previous to that?

I just don't see that absolute reliance on a last-minute hang check is realistic for some of the launch situations that I encounter.

Also consider that if you are standing with the nose pointing into a strong gusty wind, out in the flow, no longer behind any windbreak, with no helper, as you do your last-minute hang check, you are not really going to be able to fully load the hang strap or check your bar clearance.

Again that's why I prefer to get in the harness with it hooked to the glider, do a full-fledged hang check, then unhook (if needed as in the specific unusual cases described in my first post) while using a specific memory aid to help me remember that I have unhooked, while handling the caribiner/main in a way that is not going to introduce a twist into the line.

Yes I agree that this should be followed by some sort of last-minute hookin check before launch, but it's not going to be a full-blown hanging hang check, so the earlier hanging hang check does have some additional value.

Remember the guy who's carabiner was only attached to the chute bridle, not the glider main, but it was all held together in a sleeve, so he passed some sort of last-minute hook-in check, yet he still fell from the glider.

Nothing involving human beings is fail-safe!

But to each his own...

...and I do agree that some sort of last-minute hang check is a critical step wherever possible.

My choice is not to rely solely on that.

Maybe it's partly for the simple reason that I've already spent years of hang gliding WITHOUT running through a memorized check list / last-minute hang check every single time before I start my launch run.

Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. I think it's too late for me to be sure that I will always remember from now on!

My other habit I'm trying to stick to / reinforce is never putting more than one single arm through the harness (hooked to the glider) for purposes other than flying (e.g. moving the glider/harness combination to a different spot). Any more than one arm, and I'll go ahead and get in all the way. Once I put in both arms, moved the glider nose-into-the-wind, was distracted, my need to get back out of the harness suddenly disappeared as a willing helper showed up to put on my nose cone - so I zipped up...

...and launched. Oops no leg loops! What about the 5 C's checklist? Guess I didn't do it that day!

I do now - always - almost!

Nose cone is sure a repeated theme here isn't it. In my experience, the need to turn the glider nose-to-the-wind to put the nose cone on unassisted in windy conditions - or the need to unhook the glider from the restraining rope and then put on the nose cone if tied nose-to-wind - is the single biggest obstacle to simply attaching the harness to the glider, climbing in, and never unhooking.

In either case I could then turn the glider tail-to-the wind, then climb into the harness, then turn the glider back nose-to-the-wind, but that's a lot of exposure to side winds and a significant increase in the risk of flipping the glider - with me hooked in to it!

If a last-minute hang check ALWAYS works for you, I won't say that that's not valid. It doesn't seem to always work for me though.

Tad Eareckson - 2008/10/11 22:16:23 UTC

I've recently realized there's something (else) wrong with Standard Operating Procedures - 12-2.

Scroll on down to 2.04:B:3.

Within that segment are three deadly little characters:

(s)

We think of the glider as our friend. It's what stands between us and certain death when we're in that element with which we are not evolved to cope. It's beautiful and we endeavor to pamper it and keep it that way.

We need to realize that - between the time it's tensioned and the time we successfully clear the ramp - it's the enemy. It's trying to trick us into thinking we're safely connected to it and kill us. Start thinking of it as a deadly weapon that's aimed straight at you.

Think of it as a loaded handgun. At some point in the early afternoon you're gonna point it at the side of your head and pull the trigger. It's got a totally reliable safety mechanism which prevents the trigger from moving but you need to be damned sure it's engaged. Here's how...

Immediately before you're gonna risk blowing your brains out you aim at the ground in front of you and pull the trigger as hard as you can.

You don't do that a couple of minutes prior and trust your memory.

So let's see what what the Glock website has to say about their deadly weapons...

http://eu.glock.com/english/pistols_adv05.htm
http://eu.glock.com/english/pistols_adv09.htm

Psychology

Every use of a firearm exposes users to tremendous psychological strain. Learned patterns are easily forgotten in such borderline situations and complex operating elements become a deadly trap. GLOCK offers the best solution to this problem: "Safe Action"!

One operating element - one rule. Finger away from the trigger, three pistol safeties are active. Pull the trigger, the safeties are deactivated and the pistol is fired.

Safety Warning:

Under all circumstances the pistol must be treated as if it is loaded...GLOCK users must not rely only upon the fact that the extractor is not protruding from the slide to confirm an empty chamber to the exclusion of manually checking the chamber.

And here's what 2.04:B:3 says:

With each flight, demonstrate method(s) of establishing that pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

The handgun can kill you if it works when you don't want it to or allow you to be killed by someone else if it doesn't when you do. If it's used for its intended purpose it's a pretty good bet that it's gonna be a high stress situation.

The glider can kill you if you haven't done your job putting it together. The psychological factors can range from high strain (high wind, lotsa turbulence, full crew), through distraction (minor equipment problems), down to not enough strain (easy launch, complacency).

The Glock people have the right sort of approach - one operating element - one rule.

The problem with 2.04:B:3 is the assumption that more is better.

Aussie into your harness - you're hooked in.
Do a hang check - you're hooked in.
Do a walk through - you're hooked in.
Verify green LED is on - you're hooked in.
Do a hook-in check - you're hooked in.

YOU'RE NOT HOOKED IN UNTIL YOU DO THAT LAST ONE "JUST PRIOR TO LAUNCH".

One operating element - be it carabiner, speed link, or bolt;
One rule - hook-in check just prior to launch.

Interestingly, note the subtle but critical difference in the wording for 2.05:B:2:c, 206:B:2:e, and 207:B:2:d:

With each flight, demonstrates a method of establishing that the pilot is hooked in just prior to launch.

One operating element - one rule. Unfortunately, the seeds of destruction are almost always sewn at the pre Hang I level.

When we learn to fly we learn that if we want to get the left wing back down we have to throw the bar to the right. At first we have to think about it when we start getting kicked around. After a short time the reaction becomes instantaneous, reflexive, instinctive.

The same thing happens with the people who do the lift and tug thing "just prior to launch". They're the ones who are immune to FTHI accidents. It's the hang check folk who are leaving the gene pool.

Robotham - 2012/05/04 17:08:56 UTC

Christian Williams - 2012/05/03 UTC

I always make this argument about now.

I know your system works because I've done it for the last 28 years.

Unfortunately your procedure is too simple and logical for most people, they want elaborate procedures and endless reams of redundant equipment.

Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/04 14:04:25 UTC

One last attempt.

We have now rounded up all the usual suspects and promised renewed vigilance, nine page checklists, hang checks every six feet, etc. Bob Gillisse redux.

A hang check is part of preflighting your equipment. You do it in the setup area - not on the launch or the ramp. When you get in line you are hooked in and ready to go. No going down for a hang check cum hook-in check.