In article ,
says...
Errors on the part of the winch driver may leave the glider pilot completely
"hung out to dry" with no risk whatsoever to the winch driver. During aerotow,
the tug pilot is not likely to make mistakes that might kill himself.

Of course, the winch operator can't make mistakes that will kill him
or her. In addition, I think a major advantage of the winch launch is
the glider pilot can't kill the winch operator! Unfortunately, tug
pilots have put themselves at risk (and been killed because of it)
because of a concern for the glider pilot that is putting the tug
pilot at risk. Sometimes this is just running out of fuel because they
don't want to slow down the launch line; sometimes it's hesitating to
pull the release when low over bad ground.

Personally, I suspect the glider pilot is a little better off behind a
towplane (might be my US training bias), but I have no idea if the
statistics agree with me. The UK and Europe might be able to do a good
comparison, but in the US, winch launching is done in only a few
places.
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Eric Greenwell
Richland, WA (USA)