Ramy wrote:
I expected someone will come up sooner or later with the lame request
to wait for the "official accident report". It is comments like this
which often prevent useful discussions about accidents and how to
prevent them. I for one learned much more about accidents from RAS
then from "official accident reports". Are you referring to the
usually useless NTSB reports, or to accident reports in the soaring
magazine which may take months or years to come if at all? We had too
many fatalities this year yet I don't recall seeing any "official
accident reports". Meanwhile more could die from the same reasons.
I'm with Kirk and also hope that if something will ever happen to me
people will discuss it right away and try to learn from it.

Ramy

Just to play devil's advocate...what can be learned from "what ifs"?

If I weren't there to physically witness the accident, I might as well
say the engine quit and someone made a 180 degree turn to return to the
field and spun in. What is learned by that? Especially if the real
cause was something such as a forgotten bolt or pin, causing the wing to
fold.

I myself prefer to wait for an investigation where there are at least
some preliminary FACTS. That's just the way I work, I guess.....

Scott