At 16:00 14 January 2005, T O D D P A T T I S T wrote:
(snip)

I also noted the fact that including this accident
there
were six Puch spin accidents in the U.K. and five included
fatals. There are many more in the U.S.

This raises an interesting point. I am not for one
moment suggesting that this is the case but what if
there were some condition or some sequence that made
a glider irrecoverable from a spin, how would we know?
The only witness to that fact would not be available
to us.

I do, however, have to agree, we will never know exactly
what happened in this awful tragedy and any further
speculation over it is probably counter productive.

I agree speculation may be inappropriate but discussion
around future prevention should be encouraged. A glider
spinning is out of control. We all assume that the
glider can be recovered to controlled flight. One way
of preventing accidents is to discontinue spinning
at a sensible height or if that cannot be achieved
abandon the glider. I can see that the definition of
'sensible' height may result in heated discussion so
I will only say that I have my own limit which I will
use and which I brief to others when flying dual.