On 21/07/2018 01:23, Jock Proudfoot wrote:
National Transportation Safety Board
Aviation Accident Preliminary Report

The glider was equipped with a FLARM electronic flight collision
alerting device, which records flight track, altitude, and airspeed.
About 11 seconds prior to impact with the ground, the glider entered a
left hand descending spiral at an airspeed of 48 knots, which continued
to ground impact.

https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/Re...atorFile.ashx?
EventID=20180710X25659&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=FA

A turn with 48 knots airspeed implies thermalling. 11 seconds prior to
impact is not time enough to complete a single turn. The aircraft must
have been very low at that 11 second point. There are lots of unanswered
questions.

The earlier part of the trace will show how high the glider was before
impact and what phase of flight it was in, ie in circuit or low on final
glide.

There is no report on wind or turbulence. One assumes it was not a
contributing factor.

It is very sad to loose another pilot. Especially a very experienced one
in a brand new glider design. Strength to all those who knew him and to
the factory too.