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Glider Breaks apart over Reno, NV, USA

Pilot parachutes to safety as glider breaks apart. Very high winds over sierra

RPD: Glider Crashes In Downtown Reno; No One Injured

I have flown out of Minden during a visit to the U.S. a couple of years ago, in search of some wave. Never did find any, but some pretty good ridge lift up in the mountains. I suspect that the "wind" which caused the inflight break-up was caused by the rotor in a mountain lee wave. Check it out here:

Lee wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I got caught out in some horrendous rotor when climbing out of Dishforth (EGXD) in an Astir back in January of '83 to connect with the wave over Ripon race course. During the climb the undercarriage was lowered and the airbrakes opened by the turbulence, and raised and closed by me (several times) whilst on tow behind the Supermunk. Once free and established in the climb, I released the tow, marked the Barograph at 4K' and climbed at 14 Kts. initially, decaying to 6 Kts at TOC - 23K'. Such is the "power of the wind"

Pilot's Eye View

An email written by the pilot:

Quote:

I was going to fly my biggest flight in my ASW 27 today, aiming for 12 hours. I took off at Minden at 7:30 and went north to Stead and turned back for clouds and flew south to Mammoth and then went north almost to Susanville.

It was slow and as I was passing over Reno I went between 2 clouds which filled in suddenly. I should have had a neat attitude indicater like Gordo has and I tried to fly my Garmin but it was so rough that things went to hell in a hurry.

I was IFR at 14000' and I felt a stall and then the airspeed increased fast thru 160k and I heard 2 pops and the canopy broke.

I shortly came out the bottom of the clouds in a spin at maybe 9-10000' and tried to break the spin but it didn't work and I looked and saw the left wing wasn't there so I knew that wouldn't work.

I unlocked the emerg canopy release, open my harness and went over the side. I saw stuff flying thru the air (2 nanos,handheld radio, lunch etc) and couldn't find my ripcord and thought it was gone but looked lower and found it and pulled it and it wasn't a very long ride down and I saw the glider fuselage going down below me.

I thought I was going to land on the CIRCUS CIRCUS roof but missed it and then I landed on the St. Mary hospital roof but hoped my chute would snag the light pole. I hit the light and the chute snagged it and I ended up 10' in the air. A Reno cop pushed up on my feet so I could release my chute and down the pole.

HOW LUCKY I WAS.

I didn't go to the hospital but my son and daughter in law doctor told me I had to and they found a broken collar bone and my right lung was collapsed so they had that fixed in an hour by 2 doctors who are in our Air Guard hospital.

I lost my phone so no service.

Quote:

I didn't go to the hospital but my son and daughter in law doctor told me I had to and they found a broken collar bone and my right lung was collapsed so they had that fixed in an hour by 2 doctors who are in our Air Guard hospital.

That is true Indiana Jones stuff....glad he survived to tell the Gran kids:cool:

ACW - I too suffered the rotor while visiting Dishforth in the 80's (ahh happy days) - took a 4000ft tow to Ripon but stupidly fell back a bit into the cloud. Cue immediate & horrendous rate of sink that threw me into a field a couple of kms from the airfield, clambered out of the aircraft to see my tug landing back - total time off tow was "not a lot" :{
Glad the pilot survived & gets back in an aircraft quickly, presumably he was in shock having not noticed the pain from the broken collar bone & collapsed lung :eek: