Accident in Namibia, SH Ventus 2cxm

I was the PIC in the accident involving a Nimbus 4DM in Bitterwasser.
We loose the control of the glider at 3500 meters height and at 110km/h when we wanted to exit a poor left circling thermal.
Why?? I never use the airbrakes. I put the flaps in full negative position and after several spins I tried to stop the dive at very high speed, the two outside wings broke..
We succeed to bail out (less then 15 seconds with the parachute open for me before to reach the ground!)
We spent the afertnoon and the night before the rescue team from Pokweni found us early in the morning.
We wife and me are safe, just spin problems for me.
But I don't know what happends (no water or fuel in the wings).
I hope the investigations will found the reason of this loose of control in a normal flight condition.

I wonder if all the Nimbus 4D crashes were from a spin to the left? I know someone who measured the angle of incident on a Nimbus 4DM and he thought the left wing was off by a few degrees. I have no personal knowledge of how the measurements were taken. I have several hundred hours in a Nimbus 4D and Nimbus 4DM. Have about 500ish hours in a Nimbus 4T. Loved those birds.


On Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 11:49:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
I was the PIC in the accident involving a Nimbus 4DM in Bitterwasser.
We loose the control of the glider at 3500 meters height and at 110km/h when we wanted to exit a poor left circling thermal.
Why?? I never use the airbrakes. I put the flaps in full negative position and after several spins I tried to stop the dive at very high speed, the two outside wings broke..
We succeed to bail out (less then 15 seconds with the parachute open for me before to reach the ground!)
We spent the afertnoon and the night before the rescue team from Pokweni found us early in the morning.
We wife and me are safe, just spin problems for me.
But I don't know what happends (no water or fuel in the wings).
I hope the investigations will found the reason of this loose of control in a normal flight condition.

I wonder if all the Nimbus 4D crashes were from a spin to the left? Wasn't the Minden crash a spin to the left?



On Sunday, January 31, 2016 at 11:49:21 AM UTC-8, wrote:
I was the PIC in the accident involving a Nimbus 4DM in Bitterwasser.
We loose the control of the glider at 3500 meters height and at 110km/h when we wanted to exit a poor left circling thermal.
Why?? I never use the airbrakes. I put the flaps in full negative position and after several spins I tried to stop the dive at very high speed, the two outside wings broke..
We succeed to bail out (less then 15 seconds with the parachute open for me before to reach the ground!)
We spent the afertnoon and the night before the rescue team from Pokweni found us early in the morning.
We wife and me are safe, just spin problems for me.
But I don't know what happends (no water or fuel in the wings).
I hope the investigations will found the reason of this loose of control in a normal flight condition.

On Sunday, 31 January 2016 17:19:59 UTC, smfidler wrote:
Uh oh. That's no good. Has an AD for the Arcus been issued yet? Lots of load on those spoilers for sure.

For the Arcus, there was a June AD for the inspection of the airbrake bell crank. For my Arcus, the UK agent Southern Sailplanes said the bell cranks were fine when they carried out the inspection.

By the way, there is a Google Group for Arcus operators at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!fo...pp-hirth-arcus

Francois,

Thank you for posting about your accident! Do you remember how long
from the loss of control and at what altitude above ground before you
bailed out? Fifteen seconds under canopy seems very close!

Glad you and your wife are OK!

Dan

On 1/31/2016 12:49 PM, wrote:
I was the PIC in the accident involving a Nimbus 4DM in Bitterwasser.
We loose the control of the glider at 3500 meters height and at 110km/h when we wanted to exit a poor left circling thermal.
Why?? I never use the airbrakes. I put the flaps in full negative position and after several spins I tried to stop the dive at very high speed, the two outside wings broke..
We succeed to bail out (less then 15 seconds with the parachute open for me before to reach the ground!)
We spent the afertnoon and the night before the rescue team from Pokweni found us early in the morning.
We wife and me are safe, just spin problems for me.
But I don't know what happends (no water or fuel in the wings).
I hope the investigations will found the reason of this loose of control in a normal flight condition.



--
Dan, 5J

At the beginning,at about 3500 meters, when we loose the control of the glider at 110/120 km/h, it was like a flat spin, and it seemed impossible to put the rudder on the right.
After several turns with no success for recovery I put the glider in left classical spin, to a last chance maneuver...
When we exit the spin after several turns we were approximately at 500 meters but with a very high speed, and during the rise the two outside wings went off.
We loose almost 1800 meters (ground about 1200 meters)
François

Nimbus 4DM Accident history (loss of control).

- 27/07/1997 Fuentemilanos Spain, 2 fatalities
- 13/07/1999 Minden USA, 2 fatalities
- 13/07/200 Ocana Spain, 1 fatality (4DT)
- 19/11/2006 Zapala Argentina, 2 fatalities
- 22/11/2007 Gariep Dam South Africa, 2 fatalities
- 01/08/2009 Vinon France, 2 fatalities
- 11/01 2016 Bitterwasser Namibia

anyone know the accident history of the ASH-25? I have about 200 hours in Nimbus 4D and 4DM. Have about 500 hours in a Nimbus 4t that I did spin and the single seat nimbus is a beautiful flyer.

Scary! And I don't think there are that many nimbus 4DM out there. Will be interesting to compare this number to number of 4DM made. I wouldn't want to fly one myself.

Ramy

http://rcawsey.co.uk/nimbus4.htm

Scroll down to get the the 4D variants.

Steve Leonard

At 18:23 01 February 2016, Ramy wrote:
Scary! And I don't think there are that many nimbus 4DM out there.
Will be
interesting to compare this number to number of 4DM made. I
wouldn't want
to fly one myself.

Ramy

It would appear that 100 Nimbus 4D were built, of those 11 were 4DT
and 12 were 4D leaving a total of 87 DM of all types.

There is a list of 7 accidents in the previous post due to loss of control.

Just over 8% of the total built have been lost to loss of control
accidents.

I wonder how many other people have to die or parachute to safety
before someone asks the question, should this glider be flying at all.