On Jan 31, 7:59*am, wrote:

Need to at least wait till initial NTSB report.
"Substantial" damage could easily be nothing but a dinged wing tip
that makes the glider not flyable.
Minor injury could be a scratch.
World isn't crashing down yet.
UH-

I was out at the airport where this happened this Saturday (flew 1.5
in nice winter thermals, 2.5knots average up to almost 9000').

Got a good look at the 2-33 in question.

Pretty much a write-off: fuselage badly twisted, one wing badly bent,
other had a tip/aileron ding but could probably be fixed. Horizontal/
elevator bent. Fin and rudder looked OK! Probably only good for
parts. Nice cushions, BTW.

Talked to local pilots. Not a rope break. Possibly a case of misread
altimeter resulting in low release and failure to get back to the
field (altimeter showed approximate field elevation, so it wasn't set
to QFE...).

Possible that the pilot passed up several chances to land on the
airport or on good parts of the desert, while stretching his glide
back to the runway he wanted to get to. Misjudged wind, stalled into
ground hard, groundloop.
(this is conjecture only)

Let's hope the commercial operator doesn't get sued out of business.

At the rate we are destroying 2-33s, they are going to be rare birds
pretty soon!

Kirk
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