Glider crash near Reno yesterday

At 03:45 30 September 2018, Mike C wrote:
On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 7:31:20 PM UTC-6, Bojack J4 wrote:
A foreign object blocking/jamming a control as a cause in ALL these
accidents seems highly unlikely to me.

Count the number of lamination's in the tail boom, on these long wing
sailplanes, against the factory's layup schedule. Check Renny's V3 as
well.


Something seems amiss.

Mike

Mention of foreign objects, I had one a few months ago. During annual
inspection a hard plastic square tube end bung was found in the wheel box
area of my Discus bT. No one had any idea where it was from, until it was
identified as coming from my one man rigger. It must have entered through
the fuselage side, where the wings attach, during rigging or de-rigging.
It was totally out of sight during normal pre-flight inspection, and I had
not noticed it missing from the OMR.
Even if it had been seen to be missing, the last place it would be expected
to be was inside the glider, rather than lost in the grass somewhere. I
informed the manufacturer, and mine are now glued in, no longer relying on
the tight fit.
I have no idea how long it had been there, or whether it could have jammed
anything if it got in the wrong place, they are certainly rigid enough.
Dave

After almost all accidents pilots start to speculate about technical issues, weather, turbulence etc. as a main reason for accident. Statistics show that glider accidents cause by technical reasons are extremely rare, which is logical as glider has basically less moving parts that modern bicycle and reinforced plastic structure is pretty foolproof. Heartbreakingly most accidents are caused by various reasons categorized as pilot error.

On Monday, October 1, 2018 at 12:42:15 AM UTC-7, krasw wrote:
After almost all accidents pilots start to speculate about technical issues, weather, turbulence etc. as a main reason for accident. Statistics show that glider accidents cause by technical reasons are extremely rare, which is logical as glider has basically less moving parts that modern bicycle and reinforced plastic structure is pretty foolproof. Heartbreakingly most accidents are caused by various reasons categorized as pilot error.

Loose objects don't necessarily need to be under the seat. Loose objects in the cockpit can also obstruct the control stick. If the loose object caused a stick jam in the cockpit of the non-flying pilot, it would not be seen by the flying pilot, and the non-flying pilot may not understand that the stick has been jammed.

I believe many accidents are caused by technical issues, weather and turbulent. As well as pilot errors.
We can completely rule out weather and turbulent in this case.
Jammed stick is high probability in this accident in my opinion. It also explaines the delay in decision to bail out while trying to unjam the stick. You can find on RAS many stories on jammed controls from one reason or another. We only know about those which the pilot survived to tell.

Ramy

Having participated in a NTSB investigation I doubt anything is ruled out. Generally eyewitness accounts are the most unreliable evidence and a chain of events will usually be uncovered. With that said I’m curious about the event possibly being on video. Lots of tourists in that area with gopros and camera phones and several webcams around Mt. Rose.

We analyzed the Mt Rose webcam archive and have footage of derbies falling from the sky at the time of the accident. The camera did not capture the actual breakup which happened above the frame and the resolution is insufficient to recognize the debris. Probably the fuseledge or wing.

Ramy

Retitled from "yesterday" to make future searches easier.

On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 4:04:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Daly wrote:
Retitled from "yesterday" to make future searches easier.

Dan, Thanks for doing that. I realized how dumb the original title was, but couldn't figure out how to edit it.

bumper

On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 4:04:09 AM UTC-7, Dan Daly wrote:
Retitled from "yesterday" to make future searches easier.

Unfortunately, medical issues in the cockpit can jam the controls. This happened to a friend of mine when a walk up passenger had a epileptic seizure on tow. The passenger pulled hard back on the stick in a Blanik. It resulted in vertical climb, broke the rope and then impacted the ground killing the passenger in the front seat and severely injuring my friend in the back seat. This happened at El Tiro in the late 80's while I was there. A medical issue can explain several things. Times of control and times of chaos, not bailing out because he is your friend and you are trying to save his life. The high G maneuver at the end certainly caused them to blackout. Remember, the whole thing started at 14,500 when they started heading east away from the direction the contest start line over Truckee. All this we have good records of their flight trace via the PFlarm data from takeoff to heading east over Rose after thermalling with another glider. Then things got crazy as they lost over 4000 ft in 2 minutes and a I witnesses saw them at around 10k doing these crazy maneuvers out of control. This timeline is important to understanding what happened. IF any of this is true, then this brings up the subject of anyone flying with a safety pilot with a known problem. Flying in a two place plane has never been more complicated in my mind. I have and have not flown with people with known medical problems by my choice. Going forward it will never happen again nor will I ever consider asking someone to be that safety pilot.

We might never know what really happened, but all the time and effort to try and understand is a healthy exercise for our community. Imagine if nothing was being said, that would add to this already tragic event.

On Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 7:04:09 AM UTC-4, Dan Daly wrote:
Retitled from "yesterday" to make future searches easier.

Alas that does not change the thread title if reading RAS via the Google Groups web page.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo...iation.soaring