Pilot forgets to strap passenger into hanglider
 

Blimey, watch the film

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...ght/ar-BBQ8Nu2

Jeeeezus, one lucky guy

That's nuts!

What an idiot pilot. But the gopros are mounted. Why doesn't he land uphill asap?

sweet jumpin' jesus!

Hot Landing.
 

I agree that I would go for an immediate crash into the trees but it would be very fast, as the C of G is very far forwards, with the passenger weight mainly on the basebar, and there would be no possibility of flaring to any great degree, out of the dive. The passenger would most likely be seriously injured in the fall from tree height but may live.
You can flare a hanglider uphill, downwind, with no problem, when the C of G is correct, as can be seen here at 0:54 . I've even done this with a passenger (clipped in normally and a correct C of G).

Rock Climbing 101: Two anchors good. One anchor bad. Some extra webbing and a carabiner doesn't weigh much? I hope that guy's planning on finding a new instructor when he flies again!

Aye, but this dude was soloing! Bet you can still see his pawprint on the base bar.

Pretty basic failure on the pilot's part to overlook whether or not the passenger is strapped in. Assuming that was a paid for flight from a commercial guy, I'd expect the SHV/FSVL safety bods to be inviting that chap for a chat sometime soon. I also concur the pilot should have stuck it into the hill as a matter of urgency. Alpine conditions are generally windless in the mornings, it should have been possible to do it without huge ground speed & the video shows a few possible slope landings just after take off.

Also, nice fly on the wall there Nev. Brings a warm fuzzy feeling seeing a glandhider sink out at the Dyke. :}

Words fail.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tached-footage

not much worse than what you'd expect from a magenta line P2P pilot really. Who care about attention to detail.

Back-up
 

I use two carabiners and two hangloops for both the passenger and the pilot (although one back-up hangloop is common to both, as it's connected to the parachute bridle). You can see the two back-up carabiners (with no load on them, as that's being taken by the main carabiners) here.https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3a18e07aca.jpg

Two carabiners each.

You use two caribiners in case one breaks. You can use as many as you like but it won't help you if you forget to attach them.
I'm inclined to be forgiving of both pilot and passenger. They aren't the first and won't be the last. We are all human.

And that's exactly what I'd have hung on to to make sure the bloke got me down safely.

I cannot understand the fuss. Microlight flying is nothing about transportation, neither about circling the village spire. Leave that to the PPL greybeards! It is all about sports, excitement, finding one's personal limits. I am sure this bloke got his money's worth, amply!

Passenger's original write-up, before it disappeared from the www:

"Chris Gursky
October 23 ·
So...Here is the story behind the photo. Vacation in Switzerland started with Hang Gliding. Something we both wanted to do...this was a tandem flight each with their own pilot. Cut to the mountain... the pilots had us step into our harnesses followed by sticking our arms and head through and getting them adjusted. Then we practiced our take off run, which was 6 to 8 steps. Pretty much run till your feet leave the ground.
Gail and her pilot took off first....looked cool as hell. Then my pilot and I lined up for take-off. We waited a bit for the updraft to pick up and then we ran till we left the side of the 4000 ft mountain edge. I was expecting to level out above the pilot as we went, but quickly discovered that my harness was not attached to the hang glider or anything else....
My body weight shifted straight down and I found myself hanging on for my life. I remember looking down and thinking, this is it. I was losing grip with my right hand, that was holding onto a strap on the pilots right shoulder. He was trying to make a bee line to the landing field as he knew what the situation could bring. My left hand was on the cross bar that was ultimately the landing gear, with a wheel on each side. As we were going down for a hot landing I was slowly losing my grip with my right hand as I was swinging in the wind with the glider. The pilot grabbed my hand, but like in the movies it was a slow motion slipping of the grip until my right hand slipped off and I grabbed another strap on his left side for a bit but this slipped off also. I ended up holding on bar with the left hand and the lower part if his leg with the right when we here nearing the ground. I looked down to see my feet hit first, which ripped me off at about 45 mph as it was a hot landing and I was under the landing gear. I would guesstimate the total flight time was about 5 minutes. When I sat up I knew something was wrong an saw that my wrist was broken. The pilot rushed over, helped me up and walked me off of the gun range (true). Then I had to climb under two electric fences to get to a road, where they had someone picking us up to go to the ER.
11:30 pm surgery ended at 3:30 am. Left the hospital by 2:00 that afternoon. No cast ,but a wrap and a brace for 6 weeks.
Glad I am still here to tell the story.
Gail's flight was awesome and she will share the pics when she is ready.
Still can't cross Hang Gliding off the bucket list till I finish a successful flight! ......maybe Norway...?"

Still, better outcome than this. Gentle aerobatics is all good fun and makes them scream but... Back-up carabiner may have helped.

Carabiner failure is so rare no one designs for it. Those guys were unlucky, The Hang glider pilot was negligent .