There was a paragliding fatality at Torrey yesterday. I wasn't there and I'm not prepared to say anything about the incident.

But I do want to make an observation about how the tragedy was portrayed in the press. The first television reports and the first internet reports all listed this as a "hang gliding" fatality. In fact, several hours after the tragedy I searched google for "glider pilot torrey pines today" and here's the result:


Of the 8 sites reporting the incident, 7 were mis-reporting this as a hang gliding death. Another search this morning also showed many sites still mis-reporting this as a hang gliding fatality.

Bad news. Tragic. Sorry to hear this.


7 out of 8 report HG accident.

From North Carolina
P3 by Bill Armstrong, '08
FL CL RS

I tried to do a little analysis of the wind conditions on the day of the accident.

This link ( http://w9if.net/cgi-bin/torreywx/wxhr.pl?dur=72 ) shows a 72 hour history of the wind conditioned measured on or near the Gliderport. I took a snapshot of it from 6am to 6pm during the time of the accident:



The plot shows two spikes in the wind direction just after noon on the day of the accident.

With regard to calibrating the time of the spikes, there are about 24 pixels per division covering 2 hours (from 12 to 2, for example). So each pixel is about 5 (120/24) minutes wide. That means the two spikes happened at around 12:05 and 12:15. That is pretty close to the time of the accident (postings say that the accident was "reported" at 12:30).

WIth regard calibrating the wind direction, there are about 13 pixels per division covering 50 degrees (from 300 to 350, for example). So each pixel is about 3.85 (50/13) degrees tall. The spikes are about 4 pixels tall, so that would be about 15.4 degrees above 300 for an estimated direction of about 315 degrees. That's exactly 45 degrees from due west.

So I drew a 45 degree line from the front of the westward protruding cliff across the area of the accident to show an approximate wind shadow / wind rotor area on the map (from Google):


From the data available, I suspect that a pilot flying low in that area at that time might experience fairly severe turbulence from the cliff and from the tall palm trees on that property. I hope this analysis will be considered by anyone investigating this accident and by anyone flying that area of the ridge during northwest wind conditions.

It would be interesting to know how the reporters got the idea that it was a hang glider that crashed. Unless, of course, someone told them that's what it was. Otherwise, how would they know? Most of what people see in the sky over Torrey Pines are paragliders. When you drive up to the gliderport, the word "Paraglider' is pretty evident. So, how did they come away with the impression that it was a hang glider? I'm jes sayin'...

Let's see ...

If you were a reporter in San Diego and wanted to get the scoop on an incident at the Torrey Pines Gliderport ... who would you call?

The Torrey Pines Gliderport?       Hmmmm...     

Bob,

That is a super job of looking at the wind direction, showing the possible contributing factors to this accident.
Whoever does the investigation and accident report should look at your chart.

Combined with your extensive pilot experience, HG/PG, at Torrey........ Who does the accident reports in this case, TPGP?
They might continue calling it a HG .

As an old time Torrey hang, it is hard to believe how the scene evolved to be so biased .

Again, thanks for the forum and congrats on the super work you do for the sport.

,
Sam

Bob, can you pinpoint on the picture where the paraglider actually went down? If it was a turbulence induced collapse, the question is, was it pilot error in failing to recover from the collapse?

I've been approached by prospective pilots at Torrey a couple of times and they asked me about the differences between Hang Gliding and Paragliding. So I told them about the possibility of a paraglider collapse, but that a collapse was highly unlikely at Torrey due to the smooth conditions. I've never experienced any turbulence at Torrey beyond a minor bump when I hit someone's wake. If this woman was flying low and in a strong enough crosswind, I can imagine that the turbulence could get severe in certain areas if you are not far enough out.

[quote="Jacmac"]I've never experienced any turbulence at Torrey beyond a minor bump when I hit someone's wake. quote]

Jacmac,

That's what I remember about Torrey. Anytime it blew, it was wonder winds.
But also the warnings from the TPGP locals, that too much North was very dangerous.

Again, good work BobK .