Put your money where the risk is

So what other speculated reasons are there for these accidents? Technical issue? "Sudden wind gust from nowhere"?

I always wonder how many accidents are a result of an in-air medical problem.

Lou

On Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 7:16:13 AM UTC-8, MNLou wrote:
I always wonder how many accidents are a result of an in-air medical problem.

Lou

Lou --

Too many.
We know of many pilots who had documented medical issues, medications, for things like: extreme high blood pressure, heart arrythmias and looming bypass surgeries, or case histories that would preclude them having an FAA medical certificate and they migrate into glider flying....
and despite these known issues they choose to continue soaring.

When the machine makes an unexplainable, observed descent in a seemingly random flight path to impact -- regrettably the local coroner concludes "blunt force trauma" and makes no effort to ascertain what happened "prior" to impact. Coroner's job is done, paperwork filed.
NTSB has a report, case closed.

We do a much better job of analysis within our community, and make that available through the Soaring Safety Foundations reports. Liability concerns for slander or defamation? Every pilot who dies is a 'wonderful' human. I don't intend to attack any individual pilot, but should strive to learn from prior accidents. I have offered a popular presentation at conventions that reviewed fatal accidents. The take-away from those has been -- how could I (you) have replicated or avoided that particular scenario, based on publicly available information.

When we know of local pilots who are flying beyond seemingly rational medical situations, we should personally intervene.
"Hey, I like you too much to see something bad happen. Can I encourage you to fly a two-seater with a safety pilot?" Our insurance pool losses are a concern for all of us.

Sincerely,
Cindy B

On Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 12:38:33 PM UTC-8, CindyB wrote:
When the machine makes an unexplainable, observed descent in a seemingly random flight path to impact -- regrettably the local coroner concludes "blunt force trauma" and makes no effort to ascertain what happened "prior" to impact. Coroner's job is done, paperwork filed.
NTSB has a report, case closed.

Medical issues often present with impaired judgement and cognition of a level well short of debilitating under normal circumstances, but critical in the context of soaring flight. Dehydration and hypoxia are common initiators in the soaring world, but there are also many less common ones including the aforementioned cardiac events.

My personal suspicion is that somewhere around 10% of soaring accidents are the result of these low-level debilitations, where for whatever reason someone considered themselves safe to fly but shouldn't have. What makes them especially hard to diagnose afterwards is that their symptoms are often masked by the shock that typically results from an accident.

--Bob K.

Bob, I think your hitting the nail on the head. While a fuy may not be experiencing an in-air heart attack, age has a way of dulling the mind and slowing the decision making process, along with the reflexes. As the soaring pilot pool ages, we are most likely seeing and going to see more of age/imparing accidents.

I know in my situation, I have moved my dusting flying from the quite demanding area of E washington/W idaho, down into the flat land of the midwest. The primary reason was to minimize the challenges involved in ag flying. While I started my dusting career in those western hills with numerous very very challenging fields, I was young-slightly dumb, and dodged death fairly easily. Getting older I know for a fact, that I do not have 20 year old reflexes. Flight experience and muscle memory (instinctively knowing what action to take) has probably balanced out the loss. But old age will eventually win. I will give myself another 5 years or so of ag flying and then pull the plug on that type of flying. Not due to not being able to effectively do it, but due to knowing that those challenges require a continual concentration. In addition, I told myself years ago I would stop flying ag the year I find myself thinking about other things while on-swath, and not calculation and reassessing exactly where, in an emergency, I am gonna set her down from any position in the field. A guy has to know instantly what move to make, turn left, right, straight ahead etc. Without total concentration, a guy either does a crappy job of application or worse gets his tail in a crack. This mental concentration has served me well all these years. A guy needs to know when to hang up the spurs.

While imop, soaring is much less demanding except in ridge running, or high speed flying, it still requires a level of concentration beyond that of tooling along in a c-172 at altitude. And that level of concentration needed INCREASES with diminishing altitude! aka getting low over marginal terrain, or in a landing pattern. When a guy starts to find himself not concentrating in those situations, just relying on experience “ I’ve landed this bird a thousand times, no big deal�, that should be a big yellow caution light, telling a guy he needs to re-evaluate his mental abilities.

However, on the other hand, My ag flying buddies think I am already “mental� for flying xc in a glider, and my soaring buddies think the same thing when they see me doing it in one with the glide ratio of a rock.

wrote on 11/21/2019 4:24 AM:
However, on the other hand, My ag flying buddies think I am already “mental� for flying xc in a glider, and my soaring buddies think the same thing when they see me doing it in one with the glide ratio of a rock.

I would be much more comfortable flying your "rock" at altitude for hours, than
flying an airplane at a few hundred feet for half the time. I would feel like I
was on short final all the time, without a runway in sight.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1

I always wonder how many accidents are a result of an in-air medical problem.
Interesting to contemplate, alright, and some verra thoughtful replies
downthread...

Beginning 'way back' (i.e. when I was a wet-behind-the-ears soaring tyro, and
already seriously-interested in 'stuff' like soaring's life-ending risks,
etc.), I began to semi-regularly encounter 'the medical emergency rationale'
discussionally arising. Medical emergencies (and age-related mental
diminutions) are unarguably unavoidable over time (well, except by death, I
mean, sardonic chuckle). What to do about those risks is every pilot's
personal issue.

Not yet mentioned is something that - for me - has long raised a *potential*
red flag about *some* fellow soaring nuts. Without meaning to suggest a strong
correlation between the doubt inherent in the snippet above and any individual
pilot's actual judgment, I've always been reluctant to buy into 'medical
emergency' as my get out of jail free card as a pilot. Sure, medical
emergencies happen, but to exclusionarily dismiss whatever other lessons might
be drawn from this or that fatal accident is - IMHO - a disservice to the Joe
Pilot playing that card.

FWIW...
Bob W.