Not that this has anything to do with low tow.

Regrettably, your incredulity needs to be stretched some more.
Flubber is quite good at that. ;-)

There was a similar incident in South Africa a few years ago.

Very experienced pilot, high drag trainer, on the second stall he worked
out the problem.
Wire was fouled on the winch so cutting at the guillotine would make no
difference.

Pilot executed a steep descending turn laying the cable down on the
ground in a wide loop around the winch.
Finished by tighetening turn to overfly the winch in a full airbrake
steep and slow final.

The cable stopped the fun about 10m after touchdown, but there was no
damage found on the glider. The "arrestor wire" was effectively lined up
behind the glider and broke at the weak link.

Couple of lessons, including
Use the correct weak link.
Use good condition OEM rings
Service your release hooks as per the manual
Have a working guillotine - and - Use it earlier rather than later (the
only thing these folk did not do)

And FINALLY - stuff still happens, so have a plan for eventualities.

On 2014/02/25 5:10 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Tuesday, February 25, 2014 8:02:47 AM UTC-5, Andreas Maurer wrote:

Never say never.



Two years ago we had a freak accident in Germany where the glider

pilot was unable to release during a winch tow.



Unfortunately, the winch driver was also unable to cut the winch

cable.



With incredible skill (and some luck) the glider pilot was able to

fly most of a circle tethered to the winch, until finally the winch

cable got caught in some bushes and he crashed from only about 30 ft

of altitude.

ASW-19 badly damaged, pilot fortunately not hurt.

This is implausible and frankly unbelievable. I would have thought that a slack Spectra line could be cut with a sharp pocket knife.


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771