Early in the Spring of 2018 an experienced intermediate pilot flying an EN B glider in mid-day conditions suffered a cascading collapse ending with ground impact and serious injuries.
The category of this serious accident was Thermic Scratching. Close to the ground, shifts in wind direction, caused by a lot of reasons, even to include channeling by the terrain, can create turbulence and rotor in unexpected places. Encountering this turbulence without adequate altitude to recover the glider or deploy the reserve can easily result in high energy impact with the ground and serious injury or death.
The difference in this type of impact between various injury severities and death is simply the geometry of the arc the glider swings the pilot on and the angle of the ground at the moment of impact. All factors a pilot has absolutely no control over in this situation.
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