Sailplane fatality in South Africa

The following post was read on rec.aviation.soaring and corrects earlier posts in which it was thought that the glider was lifted up to 30 feet being pushed by the parachute connected to the gliders tail. This type of accident could also happen to a hangglider being towed up. I have never towed up using a winch but would like to some day. If and when I do, I think that a constant pull winch which would automatically speed up when the glider releases would automatically eliminate this type of accident. There is no way for the glider to pass up the parachute if the winch tries to exert the same amount of force to reel in a parachute as it did trying to reel in the hangglider too.

Your description of the events that led to the accident was unfortunately inaccuarate.

The launch commenced as normal with no over run of the cable as described previously. At about 30 feet in height the cable realesed from the glider, for reasons unknown. The pilot then lowered the planes nose as per normal emergency procedure of cable breaks. The pilot then overshot the drag chute on the cable. The winch driver did not realize that the cable had realised from the glider and on seeing the glider lower it's nose (our standard signal for the winch to accelerate) the winch driver accelerated more and thus causing the chute to hook the horizontal stabilizer, and thus flipping the glider. A longer shock rope might have prevented this accident, but we at the club are not even to sure of that.

To speculate any further on what happened would be unfair on both the pilot and the club until the final accident report is released.

As a side bar to other post in this thread, as far as I can remember the tower has always done all the cummunications with winch the pilot been left the fly the glider.

Stephen Yaldwyn Vaal Reefs Gliding Club, South Africa

That's a really tragic report - just a simple miscommunication cost a pilot his or her life.

Things to remember:

- Communications are important. Our club has gotten lax in the use of radios during tow with the addition of several new members over the past year, and the quitting of our most enthusiastic XC pilots. When I first started with the club, radios at the airport were mandatory and stressed.

- Ensure a driver or operator knows what to do in case of a line or weak link break. This event is always covered when training a driver and some points that I stress are: a. if pilot is low, keep the speed up - they may need to land right where you are. b. if the pilot is high enough, once you see them turn away, stop quickly and rewind the rope, checking to ensure it couldn't have fallen over anything important, like a parked airplane or the FBO. Hangers haven't counted, neither have fences. Electric lines are iffy - I've pulled them in by the winch before but we got yelled at pretty good for one incident.

I don't think I ever stressed the fact that one shouldn't begin reeling in the line when the pilot is still on final and in the air nearby, although I have refrained from reeling in the line in exactly that case just because it was rather obvious. It's definitely something to bring up though, especially with newer winch operators (and heck, even experienced ones).

Hmmm... now that I'm not flying as much, perhaps an annual 'tow refresher' clinic which runs through a formal set of training material would be a good idea once a year. This would have seemed ridiculous to me a few years ago - but I think I have about 10 flights this year, with maybe an hour of airtime total and no XC whatsoever. Sheesh. I know there's a lot I've lost track of...