Early June:
I was instructing a P2 pilot on day two of mini wing instruction. Day one went flawless with 6-7 excellent flights. Pilot is an experienced sky diver and we spent a lot of time reviewing bad habits sky divers often make, mostly over controlling and being "heavy handed". Instructions were to fly like "a little old lady" and make slight turns and always go back to hands up as your "get out of jail". On day this day we moved down in size from a "mini wing" to a "Hybrid" so 18 meters to a 16 meter. Instructions were to have a first flight like yesterday, nothing new and get used to new wing and feel., I wish I'd stressed the little old lady thing and not being heavy handed again.
Pilot kited a while and launched without incident, went right and got close to the hill. He started pulling harder and harder turns towards the hill then away (I was saying MOVE AWAY) and think he would pull away and then correct back the other way. There were quite a few students on the lower hill and all saw him look right at them and pull HARD toward them and the hill where he banked up and slammed into the hill. We have video of the incident and it appears he looked and flew right at them.
Pilot was conscious and alert complaining of back pain. Emergency services were called. We stabilized the pilot. Several EMS trained people were on the scene as well as myself. He was evacuated by ambulance and taken to an ER where he was released several hours later with fractures to his lower back but no long term damage and was told he could fly in 4-6 week's. He kept a great attitude and is planning on finishing. up soon.
Lessons learned... slow down on progression down to smaller wings.
Don't assume a pilot can handle something smaller without more education
Remind all pilots about object fixation and how real it is.
Remind all pilots that when in doubt or in trouble look toward the LZ and SLOWLY turn that way.
Remind pilots that Pilot Induced Ocolations are real and happen.
Take extra time to work with sky divers and drill in these points and the bad habits and trends we see.
a similar accident happened to another of my students 10 years ago. Also a sky diver, also day two where day one went great. I didn't spend the time reminding them how fast things go bad and he did similar and got LEFT, Right, Left, Right, trying to correct and actually went upside down in a barrel roll and slid into the LZ and was lucky enough to walk away. I often talk about this story with my sky divers as a "no way, that could never happen to a pro sky diver" and now I'll be adding this second story to help drill in the point. I've taught over 100 mini wing courses and still believe mini wings are far safer to fly than even paragliders but special precautions need to be observed.
I also recognize and know that hearing a radio is often difficult as the speeds are high and the timing is critical. In this latest incident the pilot did hear he but panic's and really doesn't remember why or how he turned to hard into the hill but after reviewing the video it seems he looked and steered at exactly what he was trying to avoid.
Final lesson is that I will never let a speed flying student fly under my supervision without an airbag harness. I follow this myself and am a huge fan of airbags for this reason but still the majority of mini wing pilots and harnesses do not have an airbag. I will preach the savings grace that back protection of any kind can help if the worst case happens. We now have replaced all our speed flying training harnesses with new updated airbag models. I am not sure if the outcome would have been any different but it's possible.
Humbly,
Steve Mayer
Cloud 9 Paragliding
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