Oooh, I hate it when that happens! ...

[onetrack]

We've had some serious wind and stormy conditions over the weekend (and into today as well) here in South West Oz.
Rottnest Island is a windy place at the best of times. The anemometer on Rottnest recorded a gust of 102kmh at 23:00HRS on Sunday night (07/09/2014).
Unfortunately, it looks like the owner of RAA 24-7835, an Edra Super Petrel LS Ultralight, either didn't choose tie-downs with enough strength - or he didn't read the weather forecast for YRTI.
I hope he gets out of the incident without too much pocket pain. :(

(pic courtesy of the Rottnest Police)

http://oi57.tinypic.com/1xxyra.jpg

[Noah Zark.]

As you view the picture, the wind, according to the windsock, is moving from right to left, and it would seem that the aircraft was displaced from a point just out of picture to the right. There are the remains of what appear to be (usually fairly substantial) tie-downs in the bottom right of the picture.
Out of interest, I wonder what/where the failure was.
Awful shame.

[onetrack]

NZ - The most severe wind gust (mentioned above) came from the NW, and most of the prevailing storm winds have been W/NW.
Runway 09 has a bearing of 092 deg and the windsock is indicating a strong W wind this (Monday) morning, when the photo was taken.
Thus the aircraft was most likely tied down in the general area where the red tie-down strap is.
I guess it's possible that constant movement by the strong winds loosened the tie-downs, and a gust then snapped them, or pulled their retention point up, or the retaining method/mechanism gave way.
There's no fixed or structural tie-down points here, so the tie-downs are only anchored in the natural soil by whatever method the owner chose - which could have been an inadequate method.