On Monday, June 24, 2013 11:26:34 AM UTC-6, Mike the Strike wrote:
Looking at the German data from 2007, they note that 7 of 62 accidents occurred as a failure of the launch equipment or during launch, however a detailed read of the individual accident reports show that 14 involved a winch.. Some of the winch-related accidents are being captured under other categories, such as "heavy landing".



As I suspected, the data are being reported in different ways in different countries and the German rate of failed winch launches is a bit higher than one might at first think. Even so, the German accident rate is impressively low.



Mike

First, a launch failure is part of winch launch just as rope breaks are part of aero tow. You're expected to handle them safely. In both cases pilots are trained extensively in how to cope with failures. The fact that they happen is not remarkable. It is remarkable when one results in an accident.