Posted on 03/11/2019 11:02:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Questions still remain regarding the double fatal collision at Torrey Pines Gliderport on Saturday afternoon. The two certified pilots were flying their paragliders when they collided into each other, fell into a cliff, and died, authorities said.
Many who were at the Gliderport said Saturday's weather conditions were absolutely perfect, so they do not believe the incident was weather-related.
Both men were certified pilots, one with an advanced certification. They both were aware of the rules -- to keep a safe distance between each other, and that the glider along the ocean needs to make way for the one flying along the cliffs, who has the right-of-way
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Very likely one was doing things right, and one wasn’t...and they both die.
Great Photo,
It is Amazing to watch!
They Flash past you doing 30 knots
and you hear a “Flutter”,
That’s it.
It looks creepy when you think of them being spiders.
“Just living the dream.”
Where did you get that girl?
- She’s hot!
- I got her yesterday.
- Yesterday?
- Yeah.
I rode my bike over
to a cemetery nearby.
Her boyfriend just died.
- You met her at a funeral?
- Yeah.
The dude died
in a hang-gliding accident.
What an idiot!
“Oh, I’m hang gliding!
Honey, take a good picture...
I’m dead!”
What a freak!
Based on how they died, the guy by the ocean got too close to the cliffs AND the guy by the cliffs. That explains how they hit each other AND then the cliffs.
Just as likely is that they both felt safe with the margins since they were 'pros', but mother nature decided to throw in something totally unpredictable.
Actually, this kind of reminds me of the crashes between US Navy ships and Supertankers.
Well, that’s off my bucket list.
Just checked into a tandem run in Pacifica.
Gonna fly like the wind in June...
wut
I’ve been in a helicopter twice...both very short flights. I nearly soiled myself both times. There’s no way in hell I’d ever “paraglide”.
Lived in that area in the 80s. My brother used to paraglide off these cliffs — beautiful locale. I surfed Black’s Beach many times.
Doing 130mph on the Autobahn used to be on my bucket list...until I recalled an article I read years ago in which a policeman who patrolled the Autobahn said that some of the accidents he had seen were so bad that you couldn't recognize the victims as being human.
My teenage grandsons who were not yet teenagers went hang gliding at the Gliderport a few years ago. They were strapped to instructors and had such a wonderful experience. Watching them run off the cliff was pretty unnerving for us.
I used to demonstrate SWAT and rescue gear to police agencies and military units as part of a job I held for a couple of years. When a chopper was available we'd rappel from it to the top of a training tower or building used for that purpose, then set a slide-for-life rescue up and "rescue" the department volunteers. That's back when I was young and stupid. Scared? You'd better believe it! But the way to beat fear is to prepare for and do what you fear.
I see your point. I suspect these two guys just made a very small number of mistakes at a critical time, and they found out how unforgiving flight can be.
It is very unforgiving.
When I was in the USN, I took great interest in the publications that circulated about various accidents throughout the fleet. I came to understand that most accidents don’t involve a single mistake or malfunction. Often, it is a cascade of events that result in a loss of equipment or life.
Sometimes both.
Mishaps often start out small. Something isn’t safety wired correctly, a bolt is put in backwards, a socket is dropped and gets lost under armor plating in a belly pan, or some wire gets frayed during installation of an electrical harness due to rough handling. Nothing might come of it. The unwired bolt never loosens, the backwards bolt never gets in the way of some mechanism, that socket never flies out in an inverted flight maneuver and gets stuck in a linkage, and the wire never causes a short.
Then, at some point, the fuel control is replaced and the safety wire done right, the backwards bolt is never found, someone removes the belly pan for maintenance and the socket rolls out, and when the wiring harness is removed with some Aviation Electrician’s Mate eyeballing it and saying to his buddy “Hey, check this out...”
And then again, sometimes that bolt loosens and falls out, the backwards bolt gets stuck on a linkage, the socket flies out and hits something and the wire shorts out a system, and then the cascade is on.
The pilot may do everything right, follow all the correct NATOPS procedures, keep his cool, and get the plane on the ground.
Or sometimes the pilot, normally a pretty good one, makes a minor error and it compounds the issue. I recall reading that it is often human failure on the part of the pilot when reacting to a malfunction that takes that mishap cascade down the path to catastrophe. A minor mistake takes a serious issue and makes it a deadly issue.
It occasionally makes no difference what that pilot does, they can do everything right, but their fate is sealed by bad luck, they just happened to be the one in the pilot seat that day.
The sea is unforgiving too, but is obviously more forgiving than flight. Those ships that had those collisions with other vessels were not one or two mistakes at the wrong time, those were a cascade of events that may have begun years before with poor training, merging into various equipment and maintenance failures, compounded by a design that had holes in it that those sailors could break their ankles in.
A pilot who dies in a crippled plane due to a single frayed wire is a tragedy...it happens.
Sailors dying in a ship, doomed to be involved in a collision by its failures due to poor leadership, lax discipline, inadequate training, low staffing, and sub-par maintenance is a shame, a terrible shame.
Wow. Thanks for the lengthy response.
You could have just said, “Murphy’s Law”.
: )
I just got to thinking on it, and my mind wandered along...
Yes...Murphy’s Law, indeed!
Hopefully you laughed at my last comment.
I had to rib you a little.
I remember the Navy Ship Crash threads and your comments. I completely agree with you that most accidents involve a combination of events/actions.
So does most everything. Earthquakes.. what causes them? A bunch of things.
The weather... what causes it? A bunch of things.
I suspect they were pushing the margins, and mother nature taught them a lesson. Not having been there, I really have no clue.
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