Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:22 pm (PDT)
A skilled and experienced pilot from Pennsylvania is in the hospital recovering from a broken back sustained after a catastrophic wing collapse dropped him from approximately 75 feet, just after launching from the front of a slope, Saturday evening. (Time of incident was between approximately 6:15 and 6:40pm. Sunset that day was 7:45pm.)
While I’m sad to have to report this news, I am happily able to also tell you that Ryan Smith is expected to make a full recovery to 100%
function, during the months ahead. This, following reconstructive surgery to fuse together and re-set several adjacent vertebrae in his
lumbar region, which had shattered under the force of violent impact. Thankfully (and luckily), there was no damage to his spinal
cord.
I just got off the phone with him, and he told me he walked to the end of the hallway and back, today, with the assistance of a walker
and a soft brace around his mid-section.
After several days of inquiry with eyewitnesses, the pilot, and micrometeorology expert Dennis Pagen, I expect to file an official
incident report with USPPA, in the next few days. I will post here, when that is available.
Our preliminary finding is that we believe Ryan encountered a dustless dust devil just as he launched. It is difficult to
determine this with certainty, and Mr Pagen is still reviewing a large amount of information relating to this incident. However, at
this time, this explanation is the best one which appears to match all accounts of what was observed and experienced on Saturday evening.
I’ve included links or text for various accounts of this accident, as well as two videos, below.
Please discuss this incident freely and plainly. It is Ryan’s deeply held desire that other pilots are able to learn from his accident.
Many other local pilots who know Ryan and fly with him, also hold this conviction.
Fly well.
Be Safe.
Kevin M
West Chester, PA
Here are the links:
my account of the day and the incident:
http://www.flylikethis.com/chapel.html
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Nick’s account:
http://guitarz.org/ppg/chapel.html
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Dmitri’s account:
First of all I appreciate that you guys are keeping this message board up to date with information about Ryan’s condition. I wish I could have met some of the pilots I did meet for the first time under better circumstances including Ryan. I’m very happy to hear that Ryan is doing as well as he is given the severity of the accident!
Well I have to say the accident and scene that followed has been visually running trough my head since it happened. With that said I will try to recap what I saw: First I want to tell everyone who was not physically assisting Ryan on the ground what a trooper he was. Having gone through basic training in accident response and having been first on the scene to several traumatic events, Ryan really helped out on his own not to make a very serious situation worse. Ryan remained calm and positive from the time we were removing the cage off his back and releasing his shoe strings for the ankle injury through the entire ordeal all the way to the chopper. Thanks to Helen and the others who helped immediately following the impact Ryan minimized the post impact injuries he could have sustained.
I did not read any additional information on the ankle injury which did not appear on the surface to be more then a bad sprain. The medics that arrived at the scene took a closer look and seemed to feel the same way.
For those of you who may be reading this and don’t know me, I have been flying with motors for about 6 years and stopped logging flights / hours 4 years ago.
>From where I was sitting, I had a very clear view of the guys that were in the air and at the time was watching Ryan approach the face / crest of the hill. As he pointed his glider what seemed to be almost directly into the wind maybe slightly off to the left, he shot up several feet in a slightly tilted back position from what seemed to be ridge lift coming up the hill. When he stopped gaining altitude, and began to the level off, right at the point where he would have begun to penetrate again is when the collapse happened. It happened so fast that it was hard for me to even tell if it was a full frontal or the right side of his wing had tucked under. Immediately following the collapse, Ryan began to fall and the situation got worse. The wing never began to re-inflate nor did it take any shape resembling a wing, instead it seemed to “ball up” even more above the risers.
I can’t say exactly how high Ryan was but I would guestimate around 70 feet when the collapse happened. P ut it this way it was high enough that Ryan had a chance to hit the kill switch and get the engine shut down during the free fall. It looked initially as if he had applied throttle which he later told me was an accident in an attempt to get to the kill switch. Accidently hitting the throttle may have given him just the right push and correct impact angle to allow the cage to take the hit that it did which may have cushioned the initial impact. I was surprised to see that the wing did not take shape and was thinking in my (mind), the entire few seconds- “come on wing Pop Pop Pop… nothing, the wing pretty much stayed in the shape that it took from the initial collapse all the way to impact.
While we were waiting for the initial response people to show up I was chatting a bit with Ryan and trying to keep him calm which he was doing pretty much on his own. After asking us several times to contact his wife, he began to try and recap what had happened. He remembered briefly hitting the throttle when he tried to go for the kill switch which he was annoyed about and pointed it out as being a mistake. (Again this little detail could have helped his angle of impact and the outcome of the situation, he initially was falling body first and not cage down. Later we learned that his cage was the first thing to impact the ground ) I did take a close look at his gear as we were chatting and took note that the entire underside of the harness and bottom half of the cage were covered in dirt from the initial impact. I also noticed, and maybe someone can correct me if I’m wrong, that his reserve was mounted under his seat bottom. This was also slightly dirty from the impact and may h ave also aided in the cushioning of the initial impact although was not as dirty as the underside of the harness so I am not sure if this was the case.
As for the conditions and what may have caused this: Not to long before the accident, I had asked if Kevin could give a basic lesson and show my brother how to properly Kite a wing as I had non-pilot guests with me and the dog that I had to keep entertained. I noticed that while they were kiting Kevin took Pete lower on the hill and to the flat area because the wind had seemed to be gaining in strength and the cycles that were pushing through seemed to be getting stronger as well. I would agree with everyone else that the winds were probably averaging 12-15 with cycles getting up to the 18 mph point leading up to the accident. Ryan had been flying all day without getting bumped around much so I’m sure he felt comfortable enough to be up there. In the many training videos I have seen over the years, I can’t recall ever seeing a wing take such a sudden collapse. It was flying along as expected and then it was in a ball with the wing tips fluttering up towards the sky… I am questioning if we may have had a micro burst or wind sheer that just hit him at the wrong time.
I wish Ryan a speedy recovery and am extremely happy to hear that the initial reports indicate a full recovery is in his future.
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Jeff’s account:
Observations from Saturday:
I am not able to offer any input to the event itself other than I barely caught the tail end of it. A few moments before hand however, video of Marty’s glider and how it was reacting in the air had become visibly quite different in a short period of time. There was an increase velocity of pobably not more than about 4-6mph but something was different. This air mass was not smooth and what ever was going on was coming down from above and not from the ground. My feeling from looking at the footage is the event could most likely have been caused by low level wind shear. There is no way to really confirm that other than to check reports that may have been submitted from other small aircraft in the area from that period. Simply stated I think Ryan happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time with very little indication or warning that we had some potentially really bad stuff looming over our heads.
I can only say that in 8 years of paragliding, I have only ever seen this situation 2 times before. Once I was in the air free flying over Kirkridge and the other was last year at Chapel Hill when Brian was in the air at approximately 500 feet while I was near the ground and got down just in time before it happened. Ordinarily the wind strength Saturday would not have been excessively dangerous for intermediate to advanced pilots. What I am trying to say is the event I think was triggered by a pretty unusual set of circumstances. A tough call for a pilot who slope or power soars because we want good strong wind. Wind shear, if that is what happened is enemy to any pilot and that is really something not so easy to predict.
I am so very happy that Ryan will be okay and I am very sorry this had to happen.
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Ryan’s (the pilot’s) account (as told to me, at the hospital):
Ryan and I talked about his experience during the accident. I’m sure he’ll give more of his own voice on this topic, in the days to come. For now, I’ll say he remembers the whole thing very clearly, and try to summarize his account, as accurately and completely as I can. He launched after a reverse attempt that inflated but didn’t fully come up. The second pull up was successful and upon throttling up, he had the sensation of being “sucked into the air,” by very strong lift.
He says he was definitely not hands up, but was into the brakes with constant pressure, prepared for somewhat active air. He thinks he was partially in his seat. He does not believe he was wiggling into it, nor does he think it was even a factor. (He said he launches with his leg straps fairly tight, so the seat comes up under him, some, as soon as he leaves the ground.)
He does wonder about a speed bar line possibly being under tension (due to a snag?), and whether that could have contributed to what followed.
When the rapid elevator ride stopped at around 70-80 feet, so did the lift, and so did the brake pressure. He said it was just gone. There was nothing.
He does not remember any oscillations, per se, but thinks the following sequence probably would have had a similar appearance.
Without an actual look at the wing, he FELT that the right side collapsed, first. His response was to weight shift to the left. However, the wing did not respond as he expected it to. Instead, he began falling and turning toward his left.
He went to kill the motor, but said he accidentally squeezed the throttle, in the process. As he continued to fall, he remembers swinging to his left as he approached the ground, and thinks he was still under power, all the way to the ground. He said he tumbled forward about three times, and came to a stop face down, under the motor. He yelled for help, as loud as he could. After his third yell, someone was there beside him (about 30 seconds after impact, by his account)
He was surprised at how quickly the helicopter arrived. He remembers the chopper flight being quite bumpy, and said he thought this was a symptom of some very trashy air.
He was very surprised when I told him his propeller was not broken. I showed him the pictures of his paramotor, and some shots of the accident scene and arriving helicopter. I will try to upload and post those, sometime soon.
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Video from earlier that day
http://www.viddyou.com/PAPPG
And another video, from just moments before the accident. You can actually hear Ryan start up his motor, and see him on the left edge
of the frame.
http://www.viddyou.com/viddstream?videoid=29855
11 mph
