On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 12:38:33 PM UTC-8, CindyB wrote:
When the machine makes an unexplainable, observed descent in a seemingly random flight path to impact -- regrettably the local coroner concludes "blunt force trauma" and makes no effort to ascertain what happened "prior" to impact. Coroner's job is done, paperwork filed.
NTSB has a report, case closed.

Medical issues often present with impaired judgement and cognition of a level well short of debilitating under normal circumstances, but critical in the context of soaring flight. Dehydration and hypoxia are common initiators in the soaring world, but there are also many less common ones including the aforementioned cardiac events.

My personal suspicion is that somewhere around 10% of soaring accidents are the result of these low-level debilitations, where for whatever reason someone considered themselves safe to fly but shouldn't have. What makes them especially hard to diagnose afterwards is that their symptoms are often masked by the shock that typically results from an accident.

--Bob K.