Paraglider stuck in trees near Woodstock

[Ward Odenwald]

Just appeared on the OZ report. Does anybody have details?

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd ... 63681.html

Ward

FYI: the title of my initial post about the news article has been altered without my knowledge.

[mingram]

I only have second hand info regarding rescue. From what I gather the pilot is unharmed and out of the tree paraglider has some damage but could be repairable.

[Ward Odenwald]

When it becomes “first hand info”, please inform. The details will help others.

Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

Would like to know who took the liberty of changing the title of my initial post! The initial title of the post was identical to the title of the news link. It may have been a PG that closed the WS tower Rd but altering/massaging information about how the story first broke is unacceptable.

Ward

[silverwings]

Don't know who changed the title of your post but WHSV channel 3 incorrectly stated it was a hang glider, showed a picture of a hang glider when it was a paraglider. Luckily no one was hurt but the extraction closed off the Tower road for a while.

[mingram]

I didn't change the title, but like that it accurately describes the topic.

http://www.nvdaily.com/news/2016/06/par ... from-tree/

[pvanoevelen]

A more detailed incident report will follow and of course reported to USHPA. I have discussed the reason(s) for the incident with the pilot in question.
As reported already the pilot is unharmed and his glider only had one broken line.

Peter

[markc]

altering/massaging information about how the story first broke is unacceptable.
Ward

Hey, sorry Ward, that change was made by me. No nefariousness involved After seeing Matt's post confirming that the pilot in question was flying a PG, I changed the topic to match. Given that the media doesn't seem to be able to distinguish an HG from a PG from a PPG from a hot air balloon from a sailplane from a SpaceX rocket... I figured we should at least get it right in our own forums, *smile* .

Glad to hear that the pilot is ok! (An HG tree landing tends to be sketchier). Wouldn't hurt if someone could remind the pilot to send a donation to the first responders, that's kinda SOP for a tree landing that requires an extraction.

(been there, done that, sigh)

MarkC

[mingram]

The board is making sure a donation is made. I'm hoping we can put together a write-up of lessons learned, tree kits, ground support procedures, and emergency response procedures as well.

[Ward Odenwald]

Thanks for making the change Mark. After Matt’s post, correcting the title was the right thing to do.

Sorry for the dustup.

Ward

[pvanoevelen]

As promised the incident report which I have filed with more specific details at USHPA as well.

Pilot involved was a novice P2 that had flown Daniels and Edith's Gap but not yet Woodstock.
I encouraged the pilot to write the incident report which he promptly did (see below, I made only a few minor corrections). At the bottom my interpretation summary.

Date: Monday June 13, 2016
Time: 2:15pm
Location: Woodstock VA


Weather conditions: Sunny skies, 10% cloud, light to moderate north west winds. Thermal conditions were light however during the day increased and resulted in an evening glass off.

Preflight: Usual preflight security checks. The pilot was new to this particular launch site and so was introduced to the different landing zones and pre-landing flight paths, from the launch site (all are easily visible from the launch site). The pilot was also instructed to follow a safe flight path (going to the landing zone if lift is too low). In particular he was told that if you do not go up go out (away from the ridge towards the LZ). Pilot forgot to put stirrup around one leg.

Equipment: Paragliding gear (EN-A wing, harness with safety chute and stirrup), safety gear (helmet, gloves) and radio. No other electronics than the radio was used on this flight (the pilot usually uses the application FlySkyHy on an iPhone5, but forgot to activate it for this flight).

Launch and flight: Good launch, followed by a ridge soaring type of path: turned right after launch, then left to fly along the ridge. The pilot could not get into the harness (stirrup not prepared between one leg). This caused distraction, with probably was a factor in the incident.
After his launch he turned right and disappeared out of sight of the pilots on launch. On his 1st left turn, when passing in front of the launch site (at a lower altitude than the launch site), the pilot realized (probably ~15s too late) that the lift was too small and decided to go to the landing zone. Radio instructions advising the same attitude arrived about that time.
This was immediately followed by a light gust that brought the pilot closer to the hill and slowed him down (pilot was also too deep into his breaks). As the light gust ended, the pilot was therefore engaged in a turn with low ground speed in a very light wind. The net result was a sudden loss of altitude than ended in a collision with the top of a tree slightly higher than the rest of the canopy. Radio contact was lost, but soon contact was re-established via telephone. GPS coordinates helped determine the pilot’s position.

Cause of the incident: Cascading of errors. A sequence of bad pilot decisions (awareness to head to the landing zone came too late and he was not able to avoid the tree top). Some of these bad decisions were due to not having the stirrup in proper place and hence his attention was drawn to getting into the harness instead of fully focusing on flying close to terrain. An untimely light gust in otherwise light conditions, flying too slow (too deep in the brakes) and not flying away from the terrain/ridge resulted in the tree landing.
Unclear which radio instructions he did receive during flight as the radio failed to make a connection after he landed into the tree. ( He was able to radio in that he landed in a tree). This might be an attributing cause.

Consequences of the incident: The pilot was stuck at the top of a 100ft tree for 3h. He could stay without effort at the point of impact (no further fall from the tree) and only got minor injuries (minor bruises on the right side). The equipment got only minor damage as well (one brake line was cut, probably during the rescue operation).

The local firefighters, police and ambulance team did the 2.5h rescue that involved a tree climber and the installation of a pulley system.

My comments to the pilot:
The pilot seemed to be too deep in the brakes. He was clearly distracted by not being in his harness/seat and as a consequence his break control/handling is negatively influenced by it.
After his first turn right after launch out of the slot he is already low and he should have move out away from the ridge towards the LZ. He did not instead he turned back 180 degrees. He tried to get into the seat again and did not focus on flying the wing. He was still not going up but down and he was instructed over the radio to go towards the LZ. Just before he disappeared below launch again seemed to be flying too slow and
again was too heavy on the breaks. Resulting in close too low airspeed. This might explain why he had difficulty turning at that point when he felt the light gust. The wing was close to stall and that landed him most likely into the tree.


So in future:
If you do not go up go out (away from the hill/ridge)
Do not fly too close to terrain (rule of thumb in the beginning at least 10m (30ft) above the trees but more for longer duration and at least 30 meters (100 ft) horizontally away from the ridge/trees. One should realize that when ridge soaring your margins are already smaller. As a novice pilot you have to keep more distance. And yes that most likely will result early on in shorter flights which is okay!!
The pendulum motion and consequently less ability to steer/control the wing is almost always caused by the pilot poorly timed braking and letting go of the breaks.
Let the wing fly always (only pound pressure in each hand on the brakes), keep airspeed up.

Regarding the radio communication. Radio check was done and all seemed functioning. Still unclear what caused the radio connection to fail. Pilot did report he heard us over the radio but we did not hear him.

All in all some valuable lessons learned here. Glad that ultimately the pilot was okay and his wing only had very minor damage.
I thank in particular George Huffman for so adequately and patiently dealing with the Woodstock rescue operation as well as the media. And as a result I think that some very fair reporting was done there! Also the pilot was very conscious of his mistakes and was able to convey those appropriately to the media as well.

Any errors in writing in all of the above are mine.

Thanks,

Peter

[mingram]

Very helpful write-up Peter. Thank you very much. I'm flying Daniels today with the pilot and will be sure to inspect the repairs to the wing and watch for and remind him of these safety issues.

[krryerson]

Great write-up and glad to hear that no one was hurt.
Landing in trees is something most of us have experienced and often related to 2 factors as stated. Flying too slow and too close.
Even some experience pilots do that too, unless they have hit the trees one's.
Steve P from WW said it like that: ''Pilots tends to do the wrong thing over and over again, thinking it is safe procedure, though 99 of 100 times you'll make it, but sooner or later it will hit you hard.
At last, many of us do bring a long rope with us, stuck in our harness. If you think you are physically strong enough to get down from a tree by yourself safely, it might be smart to bring with you a rope, when flying in the mountains.
Knut

[lbunner]

Based on the number of mistakes involved, Makes one question whether the pilot was ready for a mountain launch. iPhone not set, harness not on properly, flying too slow, not focused on flying the glider, not following preflight instructions.... Perhaps some introspection on the observers is in order as well.