[brianscharp]

A reliable source has confirmed that the local Nevada police do have custody of the video taken on the flight. Therefore, the information exists.

Also, relevant individuals do have the ability to look into this matter. My research confirms this.

That is good news, but I'll still be shocked if any of us actually ever get to see it. I'll bet it goes to and stays with the ushpa investigation.

If it said I missed or forgot--- was the pilot married? I'm wondering if the camera and memory card belong to his survivors or just who legally will take possession of the camera and memory card.

I don't remember either and I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure the family members would be more inclined to give it to anyone else.

[Free]

A reliable source has confirmed that the local Nevada police do have custody of the video taken on the flight. Therefore, the information exists.

Also, relevant individuals do have the ability to look into this matter. My research confirms this.

That is good news, but I'll still be shocked if any of us actually ever get to see it. I'll bet it goes to and stays with the ushpa investigation.

If it said I missed or forgot--- was the pilot married? I'm wondering if the camera and memory card belong to his survivors or just who legally will take possession of the camera and memory card.

I don't remember either and I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure the family members would be more inclined to give it to anyone else.

It was reported that Kelly Harrison was sole proprietor of the Clark County unlicensed, BLM un-permitted, Limited Liability Corporation.

A Limited Liability Corporation, that now owns a homemade towing trailer and a pile of busted aluminum.
It's limited liability, so that when you or your loved ones are killed, there's nothing there to sue.
This is how Jim Gaar's lawyer dad set up the failed Adventure Airsports LLC.



If anyone owns the video it would be the victim's family. They probably bought the full family adventure package that would include video.

[JoeF]

Eventually, an appeal to Ayrs' family and to the courts for release of the video for study by participants in truck-towed manned kiting might be made. Value toward the saving of others' lives might come from Ayrs' profound investment.

[brianscharp]

If anyone owns the video it would be the victim's family. They probably bought the full family adventure package that would include video.

Hopefully they'll claim it if they haven't already.

[wingspan33]

At this point the police are likely to hold onto the "evidence". If Harrison is considered to have violated some law in the course of the activities that resulted in someone's life being taken the video may remain in evidence forever. I can't say that for sure, but . . .

And since he was technically "trespassing" on Federal (BLM) property he was clearly in violation of one or more laws. Could even be described as committing negligent homicide. I.e., had he not been trespassing the young boy would not have died. That goes if Harrison is not found to have done anything else wrong.

Research tells me he did a number of things wrong.

[Free]

Speculation from Tad's archives:
http://www.kitestrings.org/topic7-760.h ... 42ca3225b3

Re: Releases
PostPosted by <BS> » 2015/04/03 00:18:49 UTC
Speculation. This photo gives me the impression the glider hit left side first with the impact breaking the left

leading edge, separating the right leading edge from the crossbar and nose connections but leaving it straight and

shearing the right wing sail at the tip. I'd guess the truck turned right.

I'll agree on the way the glider went down. A lockout to the left, but that doesn't tell me the truck turned right,
or the sequence of truck turn and the lockout.
The victim's brother, who reported the turn and stop wouldn't have recognized a developing lockout for what it was
and probably correlated the cause and effect incorrectly.

The lockout may have developed before the driver turned, driver's side, to the left, I would guess.
The driver might have been trying to drive toward the lockout to let off the tow tension as I speculated earlier. The driver
probably had a very good view that will haunt him the rest of his life.

It may be significant that the hydraulic brake control was a simple (slow) threaded pressure adjustment, instead of
an instant dump lever like on ATOL, although it probably didn't matter by that time anyway. An instant
guillotine release wouldn't either once the lockout developed without enough altitude to recover.
Again, thinking the radical turn was a futile, last ditch effort to 'cut' the tow line tension.
Can't imagine what else it could have been.

[SamKellner]

That sounds like the set up for a lockout. If they were watching from the back of the truck it might look like the glider was going straight down and its turning further away hard to notice.

Only a few seconds into the flight......

If the glider did enter a lockout and left the intended flight path, to one side or the other,

to a spectator it might appear as if the truck turned away from the glider, out there on that vast lake bed.

Hopefully the video will shed some light on what happened if there was a failure to release.

[Bob Kuczewski]

Lots of good and thoughtful comments.

Thanks to everyone for contributing. While this is a painful topic, it's important that pilots talk about it to build a better understanding of what happened and how to keep it from happening again. That's the time-honored history of aviation.

[Rick Masters]

I came away from there thinking the line went slack, then went taut, the glider whip-stalled, snapping the weak link, rotated and dove straight into the ground. No?
Please don't make me read it all again.

[brianscharp]

The driver might have been trying to drive toward the lockout to let off the tow tension as I speculated earlier.

You're right, sorry I missed that.

The victim's brother, who reported the turn and stop...

No stop mentioned in this statement.

The brief moments of trying to catch flight turned horribly bad in just seconds. "The truck took a turn ... the turn caused a little bit of slack in the line ... and when the slack came out of the line it yanked the glider and caused the glider to stall and nose dive into the ground," Corbin Moorhead said.

I came away from there thinking the line went slack, then went taut, the glider whip-stalled, snapping the weak link, rotated and dove straight into the ground. No?
Please don't make me read it all again.

A hang-gliding instructor and his 12-year-old student died Friday afternoon after a crash on a dry lakebed near Jean, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol.

Las Vegas police and Nevada Highway Patrol troopers responded at 2:50 p.m. to the lakebed near Sloan Road and Interstate 15, where witnesses reported a 12-year-old boy had been injured after some type of crash, said NHP trooper Loy Hixson.

A family had scheduled a tour with a company that tethers hang gliders to the back of a truck to get them in the air, Metro said Friday evening. Police didn’t name the company.

The 12-year-old boy was the most excited out of the group, so he went first.

The pair of hang gliders were in the air when the truck pulling the glider turned around abruptly, police said. The driver of the truck thought the tether had been released, as is usually done by the person in the glider.

The glider came crashing down because the tether had not been released, police said.

The adult instructor died at the scene.

The family of the boy loaded him into a truck and were on their way to a hospital in Las Vegas when they saw a highway patrol vehicle on the side of the road and stopped. NHP troopers attempted CPR and contacted Metro and the Clark County Fire Department, but the boy died in the truck, Trooper Loy Hixson said.

Hixson did not give the name or age of the hang-gliding instructor.

The body of the instructor was still in the hang glider at the scene of the wreck about 7 p.m. while Metro and the Federal Aviation Administration investigated.

Contact Kimber Laux at <email> or 702-383-0381. Find her on Twitter: @lauxkimber

Contact Ricardo Torres at <email> or 702-383-0381. Find him on Twitter: @rickytwrites.

http://www.scrippsmedia.com/ktnv/news/F ... 47771.html

It happened in the Jean Dry Lake Bed east of State Route 604, near Sloan.

The boy's family is already back home in New Mexico, so they shared their story with Action News via Skype on Sunday.

Family members said, in a lot of ways, this is all still very surreal but they say sharing and talking about 11-year-old Arys helps.

They said he was a sweet and adventurous boy with a smile that could light up a room.

Family members said they come to Las Vegas every year while visiting grandparents in Pahrump and they always try to do something new and different.

The family was on Fremont Street the night before the accident and his brothers went zip-lining but Arys wasn't old enough.

So when it came time to hang glide, Arys was eager to go first, so they let him.

Family members said everything was going smoothly until they noticed there was too much slack on the tether connecting the glider to the truck. They said the driver sped up to fix the problem and that's when things went wrong.

"As the driver increased in speed, it yanked the glider and the glider plummeted to the ground headfirst and me, my brother, my mother and my grandmother watched it as it plummeted to the ground and we raced to the crash site," said the victim's brother.

Family members tried CPR but Arys died a short time later, as did the hang gliding instructor.

According to the coroner, both Arys Moorhead and his instructor, John Kelly Harrison, died from blunt force injuries.