On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 11:57:32 AM UTC-7, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:

I was on a hiatus from soaring when Geoff Lyons had his accident. Can someone please tell me what happened?

Not sure of all the details. I was involved in the search flying my Husky with Fred LaSor in the back seat. We were over on the Sierra, west of the Whites, when the wreckage was spotted from Jim Herds Bonanza. Too tight and turbulent for them to get a good view so they asked me to overfly. This was on the west side of the Whites approaching the north end.

After overflying high to spot the wreck, we flew in northbound at probably 100 feet AGL. As we approached we crossed a canyon that was maybe 100 to 150' south of the crash site, as we flew over that small canyon there was significant turbulence (got Fred's attention). Other glide pilots said there was often severe localized turbulence there and they gave that spot wide berth.

We were mostly looking for signs of life, and sadly there were none. Looked to be a high energy impact, probably at a steep angle as IIRC the wings were broken but perpendicular to the fuselage.