On Monday, September 21, 2015 at 4:51:53 PM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
On Monday, September 21, 2015 at 6:39:53 AM UTC-7, Tim Hanke wrote:
On Sunday, September 20, 2015 at 5:45:48 PM UTC-4, son_of_flubber wrote:
"Deputies say Szymanowski was coming in too fast. He tried landing twice, and on the third try, came up short."

What?

The pilot was flying an ASWW-19, which per my understanding has a gear handle located adjacent to the spoiler handle. Several witnesses on the ground watched the landing gear go up and down as the pilot over flew the entire length of the runway, turned around, and then overshoot the runway. Not sure if dehydration was an issue here? may never know? Thoughts and prayers with the pilot and his family.

I doubt dehydration. More likely distraction followed by tunnel vision. unfortunately a common thing. Something distracted the pilot (such as another aircraft in the pattern) resulted on pulling on the wrong handle without noticing. Next come the tunnel vision where the pilot is convinced something is wrong with the spoilers and keep trying to deploy them.
Same thing happened at Truckee few years ago and the pilot ended up at the bottom of the cliff after going the full length of the runway in each direction, luckily unhurt but glider destroyed.

Ramy
I second tunnel vision. A dear friend did exactly that in a DG 300 about ten or so years ago. Gear handle just under the spoiler handle. Overshot a very long runway and fearing that he will hit the embankment at the end, put a wingtip into the ground, ground looping it, destroying the ship and hurting his back.
The moral of the story is that it too can happen to you. What came out of many hours of hanger talk and digesting this unfortunate incident; "look down at what handle you about to pull before actually pulling it".