Sorry to resurrect this thread, but the NTSB now has a preliminary
synopsis of this accident:

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/br...18X10736&key=1

One interesting aspect of the accident that I think is worthy of
discussion is this statement:

: As the tow plane and glider accelerated down the runway several
: witnesses noticed that the tail dolly remained attached to the
glider.
: The witnesses immediately advised the glider operations dispatcher,
: who in turn made the radio call “abort, abort, abort”.

Feel free to disagree, but I think that a better approach might have
been to tell the pilot exactly what is known:

"Uh, Lark One Two Three, be advised we have a report your tail dolly
is still on."

That gives the pilot the information they might not have, and leaves
the response to their initiative.

Please note that I am not criticizing. I wasn't there, and I don't
have all the facts. But I do think that this is something that is
worthy of discussion and reflection.

Also, I'm not saying that there isn't ever a situation where an abort
call is the thing to do. A good example of that would be the Clem
Bowman accident at Minden. In that case, the horizontal tailplane fell
off the aircraft right as the towplane was throttling up. In fact,
several people did make radio calls to that effect. Unfortunately, the
calls interfered with each other, and the result was an intelligible
squeal.

A tangential discussion is whether you should even make an advisory
call. I've talked to pilots who have said that they wouldn't even
advise someone that their gear was still retracted on final approach.
The thinking seems to be that the disruption caused by attending to
the gear late in the approach made things more dangerous than the gear-
up landing that would surely otherwise result. Personally, I think I
would generally choose to make that radio call, but would try to do it
in as neutral and informative fashion as possible.

Thanks, Bob K.