Originally Posted by
DaveJ75
I appreciate you probably wrote that in an understandably emotive environment BUT you absolutely cannot state the above with any certainty whatsoever. The automatic assumption that pilots involved in a mid-air are heads-in or 'not paying attention' is ridiculous; there are numerous ways that this awful accident could have occurred.
While I appreciate the idea of not making automatic assumptions, unfortunately, the medical incapacitation cause gets thrown around a lot as an intentional way to avoid blame.
I read about a glider crash last year where the investigating agency mentioned that the elevator was not hooked up. But this is only in a daily report with a list of other accidents that most of the public never hears about. When a person I know told me that he knew the pilot, I mentioned about the details of the cause. But my friend was adamant that it had been a heart attack as that is what he was told by the people who had been to the funeral, so I didn’t pursue it further.
This year my friend advised of a further conversation that he had with a closer acquaintance of the pilot. It went along the lines of “Do you know the real reason for the crash? The elevator was not hooked up”. But the story from close associates is apparently still heart attack.
I have been told that the pilot was quite experienced.
A couple of bottom lines. It is not uncommon for intentionally misleading information to be disseminated about an accident. It can be people with an agenda to help or harm a reputation. In addition, a surviving pilot frequently is the one lying about this for insurance or reputation or for liability or enforcement reasons.
The other bottom line is to always do a positive control check before flight after assembling a glider.