by Mike Chevalier
Unfortunately our trip to Wallaby Ranch was marred by this tragic accident which I witnessed close hand.
Wednesday, Dec. 30th, 4:15 PM The visiting German pilot, Charly Schmaderer (sp) had set up and was flying an Xtralite borrowed or rented from the ranch . The glider had on it black welded steel wheel mount extensions but no wheels. The roll out and launch went normal. Shortly after leaving the cart at about 30 feet, one corner of the base tube separated, the glider folded in half impacting nose first. The pilot hit head first. Another pilot and I lifted the wreckage away and checked the pilot. He had suffered a major trauma to the right side of his face around the eye. His left eye was open and fixed, no breathing, pulse or neurologic function was could be detected. CPR was performed to no avail. The pilot most likely died immediately upon impact.
I inspected the glider and found that the base tube had not been fully pushed into the wheel mount extension. The bolt was in place, through the wheel mount and corner bracket but not through the base tube. The left leading edge had failed close to the nose plate and the keel was broken. This defect in assembly would not have been visible and would not pull apart under negative loads such as ground handling.
There was some disagreement about the height at which the separation occurred. Some witnesses said 15 feet. I later measured the distance from the launch area to the point of impact at 110 of my paces which comes out to 220 feet. I also watched launches from the same area the next day and would conclude that the pilot would have to have been about 30 feet. I don't think a fall from 15 feet would have been such a disaster.
If you use wheel mount extensions, make sure they are installed correctly. I would suggest installing them and then marking the base tube for the correct position. Until now, Wallaby Ranch had a perfect safety record. The thousands of tows performed there without incident says something about the safety of air towing. This was a human error involving one little bolt that cost a pilot his life. MC