You are NEVER hooked in.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand

Jim Rooney - 2006/09/24 21:19:29 UTC

You might say that the fear will help you...

I DO say the fear will help me. I was scared shitless of launching unhooked from the moment of learning of the phenomenon through a foot launch flying career spanning over a quarter century.

Steve Kinsley...

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1153
Hooking In

Steve Kinsley - 2005/10/06 22:57:44 UTC

But I did have an incident where I failed to hook in. At High Rock. Eddie Miller saved my sorry butt. Sure woke me up. Too bad Bill did not have a scare like that. I now have a nice DSL line through the tangle of Alzheimer's plaque. That was at least ten years ago and there is still not a blade of grass on that neuron path. So that is not how I am going to die.

...says it will help him. He didn't have a blade of grass growing on the neuron path through the tangle of Alzheimer's plaque well over eight years ago any more than he did eighteen years ago. And I really doubt he has one now.

Rob Kells and his colleagues at Wills Wing...

Rob Kells - 2005/12

Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.

My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights between us and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights). Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above. Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.

...say that it will help them. And he had over thirty thousand flight split between five individuals in the way of data to support that position.

Allen Sparks...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=18876
Hang glider Crash

Allen Sparks - 2010/09/07 01:03:18 UTC
Evergreen, Colorado

Oscar,

I'm very happy you weren't injured.

Helen,

Thanks for the Tad 'lift and tug' reminder.

I have launched unhooked and experienced the horror of hanging by my fingers over jagged rocks ... and the surreal result - i.e. not being significantly injured.

I am a firm believer in 'lift and tug' and the mindset of assuming I am not hooked in. It is motivated by the recurring memory of my own experience ... and the tragic deaths and life-altering injuries of good friends.

...seems to have done fairly well with it.

And lemme tell ya sumpin', douchebag...

For the people that get this issue, in the situations which render douchebags particularly vulnerable to unhooked launches - distraction, interruption, delays, stress, rushing, fatigue, equipment problems, adverse launch conditions - the fear level goes UP.

...but your instincts will say otherwise...

So you're an authority on MY instincts and what they will say. So where did you get qualified for that area of expertise? In the tug pilot training course where they teach you that a double Bailey Link on is perfectly OK on a tandem but a deadly threat to the tug on a solo?

How 'bout NOT telling me what my instincts will say. 'Specially if your extrapolating from what YOUR instincts are telling YOU - 'cause my instincts, along with just about all the rest of my circuitry - are pretty much the polar opposite of yours.

...(the fear is highlevel...

I looked up "highlevel" in my dictionary. Couldn't find it. Is there some reference you can send me to so's I can get up to speed on this?

...thought, and highlevel thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of your brain..

1. The capacity for high level thought was obviously the first thing that got tossed out of YOUR brain - undoubtedly in utero as a consequence of your sainted mother hitting the bottle WAY too hard and often.

2. I never thought that one needed much in the way of high level thought circuitry to be constantly scared shitless of ending up on the scree below the north ramp at McConnellsburg due to a common and easily made mistake that can hit one at any time from the setup area to the word "Clear."

3. But I guess you must be right because only the most intelligent 0.01 percent of hang gliding people ARE scared enough within the couple seconds prior to running off the ramp to do the most simple, effortless, speedy, effective, and critical of checks.

...else we'd never launch unhooked in the first place).

Consider THIS, shit-for-brains...

SOME of "us" AREN'T ever launching unhooked in the first place. And we really don't need to be lectured by assholes who HAVE launched unhooked in the first place and thus feel they're the top experts in the field. Maybe you should just shut the fuck up and see if you can learn anything from some of the weekend warrior muppets who started flying HANG GLIDERS when you were in diapers and never came close to screwing the pooch you did - with a paying customer on board.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand

Jim Rooney - 2006/09/24 21:19:29 UTC

Ok, this thread's a million miles long already (and mostly my fault at that), so I'm not going to feel bad about making it a tad longer.

A couple things to chew on here...

There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already. This thread I think makes this obvious... every single thing people have put forth as "the way", someone else has show how it can fail. Every single one. Argue about the details, but every single one fails.

Here's the real trick of it in my book (especially with new technology, but it applies to methods too)...
Whatever you change only works on that glider/site/whatever.
What happens when you're off flying somewhere else or flying someone else's gear?

Someone suggested putting a red flag on the nose of the glider that gets removed after the hang check... this way, if you haven't hooked in, it's really obvious. Say this works for you and you get used to it. Then you borrow a glider or fly a different site on a rented glider. In your world, no red streamer means "good to go".

Take aussie vs clipin if you like... what happens when you're at a site that you can't use the aussie method with? (I can name you some cliff launches that you can't if you care). Now you're used to the security of the aussie method, and it's not there. You might say that the fear will help you, but your instincts will say otherwise (the fear is highlevel thought, and highlevel thought is the first thing that gets tossed out of your brain.. else we'd never launch unhooked in the first place).

Argue if you will about the examples (whatever), the trick of it isn't the method to me, it's how using new things doesn't work (and actually causes problems) in strange ways (like when going back to "normal" flying after getting used to the new method/device).

Enough about what doesn't work though... what does?
Since we don't have a plug that only fits one way, we fall on lesser methods, but some are better than others...

In particular... Third Party Verification.
You won't save you, but your friends might.
Not always, but they're more reliable than you.
Why do you think that airline checklists (yes our lovely checklists) are check-verified by pilot AND copilot?

That's all I got for ya.
The other topics have been beat to death here.
If there was an answer, we'd all already be doing it.

So we're pretty much all doomed to launch unhooked if we fly long enough - more so if we're just weekend warrior muppets and not professional pilots with keen intellects - UNLESS we have friends around at the time AND we're fortunate enough to have them notice our dangling carabiners.

Reminds me a lot of aerotowing.

If we get into a low level lockout you don't trust us to let go of the basetube and hit the release velcroed to the downtube within easy release...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31052
Poll on weaklinks

Jim Rooney - 2013/03/05 01:32:20 UTC

Btw, it's nothing to do with you "counting" on the weaklink breaking... Its about me not trusting you to hit the release.
If it were only about what you want, then you could use what you like.
You want the strongest weaklink you can have.
I want you to have the weakest one practical.. I don't care how much it inconveniences you.
I don't trust you as a rule. You Trust you , but I don't and shouldn't.

...'cause we probably think we can fix a bad thing and don't want to start over.

So, unless we've been at an around all this plenty long enough to understand what's what and who's who, we've all gotta use a standard aerotow weak link...

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24846
Is this a joke ?

Jim Rooney - 2011/08/28 10:40:24 UTC

Is a weaklink going to save your ass? Who knows? But it's nice to stack the deck in your favour.

...because it MIGHT break in time to save our asses (and we can always manage the consequences of any weak link break that occurs when it's not supposed to - except in cases where nobody really knows what really happened and it's unacceptable to speculate) - even though we never seem to find any documentation of this positive deck stacking doing anybody any good and can find plenty of documentation of it not doing people any good.

So, anyway... Are the instructors and schools responsibly, ethically making their new students aware of this issue? Are they telling them that an unhooked launch is pretty much inevitable, the consequences are likely to range from really unpleasant and expensive to instantly fatal, and there's really nothing anyone can do to manage the risk...

There isn't one sure-fire answer.
If there was, we'd all be doing it already. This thread I think makes this obvious... every single thing people have put forth as "the way", someone else has show how it can fail. Every single one. Argue about the details, but every single one fails.

...other than hope that one of their friends will be in position at the right time and notice the dangling carabiner before launch commitment while all this other really cool stuff is happening on, behind, in front of, over the ramp? Shouldn't they be making sure that prospective students really understand what they're getting into so they can make informed decisions about pursuing this sport?

Seems to me...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/message/11700
Question

Zack C - 2010/11/18 05:59:03 UTC

But I'm one of Matt's 'defective products'. The first thing I learned to do in the field at Lookout was a hang check. I was told a story by my instructor about the then-recent death of a pilot who launched without being through his leg loops. The instructor called this pilot an 'idiot'. This is how I was taught to think from Day 1.

...they're all doing the precise opposite. Isn't that how...

James Rooney - 78142 - H4 - 2004/09/03 - Sunny Venesky - AT FL LGO PL ST TAT TFL RLF TUR XC - AT ADMIN, TAND INST, TUG PILOT

...the guys at Ridgely trained you? After all, you had to find out that nothing works the hard way. And if your training sucked that bad in that department what makes you so sure that your training in a lot of other areas didn't suck just as bad?

And how 'bout tandem passengers at operations like Extreme Air and Vancouver Hang Gliding? Are they telling their bucket listers about this unmanageable risk so that they can make informed decisions?

I understand that there's a significant possibility of the hang glider pilot failing to hook himself, myself, or both of us into the hang glider; the possible consequences of any of those possibilities include serious injury and death; and there is no effective procedure for eliminating, minimizing, or reducing this risk and my best hope is that the hang glider pilot may have a friend at launch who may notice the error.

I further understand that neither myself nor any of my friends are qualified to identify deficiencies in the hook-in procedures and are not permitted to communicate with the hang glider pilot regarding any such issues.

I knowingly and willingly agree to accept this risk and these conditions and hereby waive the right of myself and my next of kin to seek compensation for any damages.

_________________________
Signature
_______________
Date

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/b-c-hang-glider-pilot-pleads-guilty-in-woman-s-death-1.1675643
Hang-glider pilot pleads guilty in death of woman who fell 300 metres to death | CTV News

Orders appeared in a B.C. Supreme Court room packed with Godinez-Avila's friends and family. The court heard an investigation by the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada concluded the woman's harness was not attached to the glider during takeoff.

The probe also found Orders did not perform a pre-launch safety check, even though he had taken a tandem re-certification course just weeks earlier.

Doesn't sound to me like that's happening. Sounds to me like the industry's telling its pilots and customers, the general public, and the courts that there are solid effective procedures for preventing these incidents that anybody who isn't natural born felon material can easily adhere to.

So how come you're not going to bat for your fellow unhooked tandem launcher, raising hell with USHGA and HPAC, getting an article published in the Vancouver Sun? Really don't give a flying fuck about anybody but yourself?

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4247
Hook in failure in New Zealand

Jim Rooney - 2006/09/25 11:37:18 UTC

i've been preaching this stuff for a long time... that's the irony... i was one of those 'hang checks will save you' guys.

Yeah. And in the 2005/12 issue of Hang Gliding Rob Kells was saying:

Rob Kells - 2005/12

Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.

My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights between us and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights). Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above. Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.

that for over thirty thousand flights by Wills Wing employees nobody was doing hang checks except on infrequent occasions when clearance checks were needed and nobody was launching unhooked. But his intellect wasn't as keen as yours is so he wasn't worth listening to. So how many foot launches did you have logged before you found yourself dangling from the basetube and forcing your glider and passenger into a dive into the powerlines?

christ... my email was jim@hangcheck.com!

Are you sure it wasn't christ@hangcheck.com?

i was the religious finatic about checking.

Yeah, I knew you were a religious finatic shortly after our paths first crossed in 2002. From that point on I wanted absolutely nothing to do with you.

i did do hookin checks (after hang checks)

BULL FUCKING SHIT.

- Hook-in checks aren't done after the goddam-worse-than-useless hang checks...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=30386
whos fault is it ?

Karl Allmendinger - 2013/11/30 17:19:38 UTC

Make a hook in check part of the launch sequence, lift the glider and feel the straps get tight...

They're done as part of the LAUNCH SEQUENCE.

- People who do hook-in checks:

-- aren't religious finatics about hang checks. They quickly realize that the hang check's worth shit at best, the major cause of unhooked launches at worst and stop doing them.

-- don't launch unhooked. You launched unhooked. Therefore...

-- describe their procedures. You don't describe your procedures. Therefore...

-- include them in their videos because they understand that the hook-in check is the most important thing they're gonna do on that flight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjsp0mH7m0Y
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjsp0mH7m0Y[/video]

There's no video of you ever doing a hook-in check anywhere. Just one of you skipping the hook-in check, dangling from the basetube, and forcing your glider and passenger into the powerlines that we never got to see.

http://www.chgpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2871
speed link

Jim Rooney - 2007/12/13 18:07:02 UTC

As they often say here on the internet....
Pics or it didn't happen.

I did "bother" to look at your pics. They're cryptic at best. How would I know they were component shots otherwise? Wasting pixels? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Riiiiight. Pics or it didn't happen pal.

Pics or it didn't happen - asshole.

-- are always striving to do things right, the best they can, better. You can't be bothered to hit shift keys to capitalize letters, learn to spell, or run spell checks. If you can't even be bothered to run spell checks in order to mask the depths of your stupidity to the public it's a no brainer that you can't be bothered to do hook-in checks to prevent you from diving your glider, self, and passenger into the powerlines.

i did all the stuff you guys are saying will save you

Which guys?

http://www.ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1041
"Sharing" of Hang Gliding Information ?!?

Merlin - 2012/05/26 14:22:30 UTC

I confess to previously having a bit of an Oz Report habit, but the forced login thing has turned me off permanently, and I am in fact grateful. Frankly, the site had pretty much been reduced to a few dedicated sycophants in any case.

The assholes Davis allows to participate in his show? Yeah, you probably did.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17820
Launching unhooked with scooter tow

Davis Straub - 2009/11/11 14:57:45 UTC

You land in the sand on your stomach

What happens when you try to launch unhooked when scooter towing? Not much. Apparently in this case the tow instructor didn't notice that the student was not hooked in, even though the instructor was using a turn around pulley and was sitting on the scooter next to the student.

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3816/13146645834_fa3a846543_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3702/13146645604_a258998061_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3729/13148945555_cea849a8eb_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3722/13146652594_fe6ef7867c_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3689/13146368235_2129d176e2_o.png

http://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3691/13146652014_45b555ccec_o.png


http://ozreport.com/forum/files/copy_2_of_imgp1239_197.jpg
http://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7220/13949046702_ccfa0fafab_o.png

http://www.thekiteboarder.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/opener-532x800.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mX2HNwVr9g
Hang Gliding Fail
andyh0p - 2011/04/24 - dead
03-0325 - 06-0511
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/13512258445_6b5a3662d0_o.png

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/12931220073_1609b59b17_o.png
http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864885_3b8ca2da8c_o.png

http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52378864870_2129572e3a_o.png
18-0919 - 21-1025

[Tad Eareckson]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/message/11550
L/D?

Zack C - 2010/11/06 23:43:10 UTC

B and I showed up around 10:00. The weather was ideal...just the right temperature, sunny skies, and light wind (less forgiving so good for practice). We filmed each others flights...not all of them, but the ones we got are here (password = 'red'):

http://vimeo.com/16572592


I'd guess we each got maybe six flights. Well, B's glider got six...one flight didn't include him (same password):

http://vimeo.com/16572582


No damage to either the glider or the pilot.

He was uninjured and the glider undamaged, but I still consider this a serious failure on the part of us both, especially given how much we've discussed this recently.

Other than that, it was a fun day.

Mick Howard - 2010/11/07 00:16:00 UTC

I really hope this is a wake-up call. This could have been disastrous at any other flying site. Why wasn't a hang check performed? A hang check must become a ritual immediately before every launch.

Glad you weren't hurt.

Let's make sure that we perform all preflight checks thoroughly tomorrow at Columbus and of course every time we fly.

Zack C - 2010/11/07 04:38:31 UTC

While Mick is right in that this should be a wake-up call, it's the second wake-up call we've had this year. I don't think the first one changed much, and this concerns me.

2-112
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4-220
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6-311
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[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9G8ERElpjM

12-03019
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13-03110
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15-03302
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27-04027
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33-04804
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From stationary at launch position through hook-in check to commencement of forward motion... No more than two seconds.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=23476
Aborting launch ...as a technique

Mike Bomstad - 2011/10/05 03:38:30 UTC

Here is what I do, & what it looks like when I abort my launch.
2 times here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5FgwNqsKQ

Great job, Mike! And neither time did you need to resort to the somewhat questionable practice of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c87vgq5ZFU0


...dragging a tip over a rock while moving to launch position.

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=13359
Today was a bad day!

Mike Bomstad - 2009/08/26 04:21:15 UTC

The harness is part of the aircraft... end of story.
(Just because it's easy to remove, does not mean it should be. Dont choose the path of least resistance)

Attach it to the wing, completing the aircraft.... then preflight the completed aircraft.
Buckle yourself into the cockpit and then your ready.

Keep up the great work!

13-03110
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http://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2912/13700562685_86575e9220_o.png
14-03129

[Tad Eareckson]

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15337
unhooked take off clip

George Sychrovsky - 2009/03/13 04:14:40 UTC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0lvH-KxGlQ


I didn't see it posted here, apology if it was.

And it would matter - either way - how?

Mike Bomstad - 2009/03/13 05:32:53 UTC

Another...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u51qpPLz5U0

07-0913


10-1003

Richard - 2009/03/13 05:37:31 UTC

Jeez how would that happen, surely they are trained to always connect the harness to the glider as part of the setup procedure. No pilot would ever consider putting the harness on separately from the glider, would they??

Rob Kells - 2005/12

Always lift the glider vertically and feel the tug on the leg straps when the harness mains go tight, just before you start your launch run. I always use this test.

My partners (Steve Pearson and Mike Meier) and I have over 25,000 hang glider flights between us and have managed (so far) to have hooked in every time. I also spoke with test pilots Ken Howells and Peter Swanson about their methods (another 5000 flights). Not one of us regularly uses either of the two most popular methods outlined above. Each of us agrees that it is not a particular method, but rather the fear of launching unhooked that makes us diligent to be sure we are hooked in every time before starting the launch run.

Mike Bomstad - 2009/03/13 05:42:12 UTC

You would be suprised...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=29791
Fun cloudbase flight 8/17 - Parker

Mike Bomstad - 2013/08/25 16:22:26 UTC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c87vgq5ZFU0

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Tad Eareckson - 2010/02/08 01:14:35 UTC

We already HAVE an extremely effective USHGA/USHPA SOP addressing this issue. It's just that virtually no one ever bothers to read, teach, adhere to, or enforce it.

Does the HGFA also have something on the books? I've never been able to find anything.

Asshole.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/MulgrewFatalhangglidingcasehighlightsinsufficientcivilwrongfuldeathlaws/9785015/story.html
Ian Mulgrew: Fatal hang-gliding case highlights insufficient civil wrongful-death laws

Ian Mulgrew - 2014/04/28 19:23
Vancouver Sun

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/cms/binary/9785016.jpg?size=620x400

Lenami Godinez-Avila fell to her death in a freak hang-gliding accident in 2012

The family of a 28-year-old Mexican woman killed while tandem hang-gliding is suing the instructor who was given five moths in jail for causing her death, as well as the sport's governing associations.

YES!!!

The organizations are alleged to be endangering the public by not ensuring that launch and flying sites are chosen, constructed, and operated in a safe manner.

Leave it at "operated".

The plaintiffs also claim the groups have demonstrated a "wanton and callous disregard for public safety" by "failing to ensure the public is advised that the inherently dangerous activity of hang gliding is being undertaken without government regulation, supervision, and/or oversight."

And...

- in the US, with rabid contempt for its own internal regulations.

- how many times have I said that if the marks were advised of that risk and made participants in a hook-in check procedure this shit wouldn't happen?

They are accused of "mandating and/or promoting and/or encouraging hang glider operators to conceal and/or not openly discuss hang gliding incidents that result in injury and/or death ..."

BULL'S-EYE.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hhpa/message/11700

Zack C - 2010/11/18 05:59:03 UTC

But I'm one of Matt's 'defective products'. The first thing I learned to do in the field at Lookout was a hang check. I was told a story by my instructor about the then-recent death of a pilot who launched without being through his leg loops. The instructor called this pilot an 'idiot'. This is how I was taught to think from Day 1. As you said, it's a bitch to rewire a brain...

Welcome to hang gliding.

Burnaby lawyer Don Renaud filed the action in B.C. Supreme Court on Friday, although a provincial law governing wrongful death suits precludes large financial rewards.

He said father Miguel Angles Godinez Villages and mother Herlinda Avila Ramirez are interested in accountability for the death of their daughter, Lenami Godinez Avila, not a windfall settlement.

"The inadequacies of the current wrongful-death law mean the family can only get funeral expenses," Renaud explained.

Based on an archaic 1846 British law, the woefully inadequate B.C. Family Compensation Act provides little recourse for the wrongful loss of a loved one unless a main breadwinner is killed.

"However," Renaud pointed out, "if we can get the B.C. Court of Appeal to follow a 2013 decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal, the door will open for a shot at punitive damages. Beyond that, the public should know the dismal truth about our wrongful-death laws."

The suit names William Jonathan Orders, business associate Shaun Wallace, their company Hurlstone Ventures Inc. (D.B.A. Vancouver Hang Gliding), the Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada, the B.C. Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, the West Coast Soaring Club, ABC Company, John and Jane Doe.

Get the HPAC.

Orders, 51, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence and was sentenced in February for forgetting to hook the young woman to the glider before the flight on April 28, 2012.

She plummeted 300 metres.

The young woman had lived in Canada for a decade, working for B.C.'s Environment Ministry while studying at the University of B.C.

The fatal flight over the Fraser Valley was meant to be a celebration of her relationship with her boyfriend; instead, it became a tragedy, with her final agonizing minutes captured on digital video.

"Before her death, Lenami Godinez experienced conscious pain, suffering, shock, and terror," the court pleadings state.

And if you think about that kind of shit...

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=18876
Hang glider Crash

Allen Sparks - 2010/09/07 01:03:18 UTC

Thanks for the Tad 'lift and tug' reminder.

I have launched unhooked and experienced the horror of hanging by my fingers over jagged rocks ... and the surreal result - i.e. not being significantly injured.

I am a firm believer in 'lift and tug' and the mindset of assuming I am not hooked in. It is motivated by the recurring memory of my own experience ... and the tragic deaths and life-altering injuries of good friends.

...JUST BEFORE you launch...

"At or about the time of the said fatality, the defendant Orders swallowed the memory card from his video camera affixed to the hang glider...

When he landed. It's a bit of a trick to pull a card out of a wing camera in flight.

...for the purpose of destroying evidence he knew or should have known was capable of incriminating the defendants ... in a criminal and/or civil prosecution."

Not that there was any shortage of other evidence or doubt about what happened or why.

The memory card and its contents were later recovered.

The pleadings allege the associations and club failed to ensure the proper training, standards, and supervision of commercial hang-glider pilots such as Orders and Wallace.

They trained him to use a procedure which INcreases the probability of failure.

They compromised public safety, the court documents state, by having an inadequate system for pre-flight inspections and safety checks and by failing to supervise hang-glider operators.

Let's not forget by having a nonexistent launch sequence check.

The HPAC is a non-profit corporation based in Vancouver putatively responsible for the training, certification, and supervision of hang gliders to ensure commercial flights are undertaken safely.

Yeah... Right.

The B.C. association is comprised of current members of HPAC and provides launching sites across the province, including the site known as Mount Woodside, where Godinez fell to her death.

The West Coast Soaring Club is also involved in the maintenance of Mount Woodside, and the unknown defendants are individuals who approved flights from the site.

Orders and Wallace were members of all three organizations, the suit says.

The more heads on pikes the better.

The case highlights the problem with the law in that there is little financial incentive for anyone to bring a suit since the payoff is negligible.

The government issued a Green Paper in 2007 holding out the potential of reform, but nothing has come of it.

Well, maybe now...

In conjunction with the Wrongful Death Law Reform Group, Renaud has been spearheading the fight for change over the last decade, maintaining that civil litigation like this is in the public interest.

He insists that it is only through such litigation that those who provide these risky services are held liable for their negligence and the public warned.

"No tandem passenger in the United States (which has wrongful death laws that impose large financial penalties) has fallen to her death because she was unclipped," Renaud said.

1. No, but a couple of them have been launched without the "pilot" being connected.
2. This don't have shit to do with legal consequences.
3. Fuck US hang gliding.

"It has happened in British Columbia and New Zealand. Both are weak tort jurisdictions and tiny compared to the USA."

Do you ACTUALLY THINK that somebody is less likely to launch with an unhooked passenger because legal and/or civil consequences would be more severe?

On the other hand, if the national organizations were more terrified of being sued out of existence they might actually consider fixing the problem.

None of the allegations contained in the pleadings have been proven in court and the defendants have not yet responded to the allegations.

imulgrew@vancouversun.com

Fuck the Vancouver Sun.

[Tad Eareckson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL00UefQqZA
Forgot to clip into hang glider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL00UefQqZA


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