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.

Again, good work BobK .

Woman Who Died After Paragliding Crash Identified
Medical Examiner's Office Identified Crash Victim As Pam Hargett Of South Carolina

POSTED: 1:31 pm PDT May 12, 2012
UPDATED: 12:45 pm PDT May 13, 2012

SAN DIEGO -- Authorities have identified a woman who died after a paragliding crash in La Jolla on Saturday.

The woman, who was identified as 52-year-old Pam Hargett of South Carolina, was paragliding when she apparently lost control and crashed into the side of the Torrey Pines cliffs, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. The downed glider came to rest suspended on a cliff near Black's Beach, said lifeguard Lt. Nick Lerma.

The Medical Examiner's Office said Hargett's fiancé witnessed the incident and called 911.

At one point, as many as 20 rescuers struggled to reach Hargett.

"It was in a very difficult area for rescue crews to get to," said lifeguard Lt. John Everhart.

The rescue team crossed the property of businessman Bill Lerach. He was hosting a fundraiser for Rep. Bob Filner, a candidate for San Diego mayor and for Scott Peters, who is running for Congress.

Lifeguards rappelled down the cliff and secured the unconscious paraglider, Lerma said. A helicopter hoisted the 52-year-old woman to the top of the cliffs where she was pronounced dead, he said.

A friend of the couple who did not want to be identified told 10News he had met Hargett a few times.

Hargett and her fiancé David would travel to San Diego from South Carolina and flew with a local paragliding group, according to the friend. The friend described Hargett as having piloted her own paraglider for two to three years.

The lifeguards who came to Hargett's rescue could not say exactly how she lost control.

"I have no idea whether this is a wind-related issue or an equipment issue or an operator issue," said Everhart.

That probably won't occur in my lifetime; things in confusion seem not to smooth out very fast.

Has anyone done full smoke study of the air flow field below the top of the Torrey cliff during various wind conditions?

The face of the cliff contributes something to the flow field in terms of heat by the sun. Also, the height of the cliff and the cliff's verticality help to form a profile of flow different from low-angled smooth hills; just how much front-of-cliff windshear/rotor and rotor-calm occurs during certain times of day with certain meta ambient wind speeds?

Was she trained well for examining specialized wind gradients?

I am wondering what the schedule is for release of captured-rotated-heated bubbles that are perhaps low-hugging the cliff are? Sporadic complex wind shears could be occurring when most everything else is seemingly smooth beyond the active temporary regions. Some events could simply wrap a non-airframed gliding parachute into wads.

Thanks for the link to the pgforum. I figured they would have a discussion.

They are saying that the wind was due West with some South component at times.

They could really benefit by seeing Bob's charts on the wind direction and velosity, and approximate location.

I'm not sure if posting a link to our HG forum would be the correct thing to do??

What really gets me is, how many US hang pilots have been H-3 for >10yr and dream about flying Torrey, knowing it is out of the question.

"Howdy. So you'd like to fly a hang glider here at Torrey? Well, it will take you several years of dedicated training to fly a hang glider here. But if you want to sign up for our P1 package, we can get you in the air in a few days ... maybe even today. What do you say?"

I think it would be a great thing to do. I had an account there, but when I just went back to log in, it failed. Maybe my account got stale? If anyone's got an active account on that site, please feel free to post a link to this topic. Here's the link: http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1031

I captured the wind history from the local site and published a brief analysis at the US Hawks Hang Gliding forum:

  http://ushawks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1031 (scroll down to the wind plot and image of the site)

From the wind history and the cliff configuration (shown in that topic), I believe it was a northwest wind that may have contributed to the death. Those conclusions are certainly not definitive, but they might help shed a little more light on what happened. Any feedback on that analysis is welcome, but please remember that I'm currently limited to one post per day on this forum ... so please be patient.


I was bothered by that rule as well. I believe it was put into place by David Jebb who operated that site for nearly 10 years. I defeated him as USHPA Regional Director in December of 2008 and he left Torrey Pines within a few weeks of that defeat. I believe the tandem right of way rule was repealed after a collision between two paragliders which was believed to be related to that rule a few months after Jebb had left. That's one of several improvements that I believe has resulted from my efforts at reforming that site. There's still a lot more work to be done.

P.S. I posted this just a few minutes ago, and I can already see the "haters" dropping my Karma. This does not contribute to helpful dialog, and it does not reflect well on the hospitality of this forum.