11/26 Report on Hansford

[Tom Pipkin]

While at home today in Ojai, I turned on the radio around 12p hoping to catch a little play-by-play of a stray pilot or two heading through the pass. Almost immediately I hear a call for a chopper for an injured pilot. The downed pg pilot is Hansford, he had crashed near Noon Peak. The chopper was called and extracted him an hour or so later.

According to the Ventura Sheriff's dept. he has been transported to Cottage Hospital with at least a possible broken arm.

We’re all wishing Hansford a speedy recovery.

[Dean S]

Several of us have been on the phone with Hansford this morning and the report is that he’s got a broken arm and some minor injuries. He had surgery last night to place a screw in his elbow and his prognosis is good. He’s being told he’ll fully recover without loss of mobility in his arm. He’s being released from the hospital this afternoon.

From what I was told by Hansford is that he had a large, violent collapse with very little terrain clearance that caused a full riser twist and spiral dive into the hillside. I’ll leave the full details for Hansford to explain if he chooses.

[oj]

I contacted the S&R unit in Santa Ynez and was informed that the glider is still on the mountain. Efforts to remove it will be made. I'm posting this so anyone flying near Noon Pk. doesn't report a pilot down.

[hhcutlip]

Many thanks to everyone for their help, expressions of concern, and good wishes. I'll post details later but the gist reported here is correct. I am home now, in very little pain, and expecting full recovery in within a month. I consider myself to be a very lucky man.

[Parma Chris]

Good to see you are OK!

Call me regarding your car, perhaps i can help.

[hhcutlip]

Thanks for the offer but my wife is being dropped off there this afternoon to pick it up.

[hhcutlip]

I will be out of town on an interviewing trip from Thursday to Tuesday afternoon (Raytheon is shutting down my facility so I need to find a new job.) I will happily treat anyone that participates in an attempt to retrieve my gear to the finest dinner in Santa Barbara. I feel bad for not being there but I'm afraid I wouldn't be much help anyway with only one good arm.

[Chip Bartley]

I talked to my buddy who is a pilot for Ventura County SAR and he said if I gave him the GPS coordinates that he would see what he could do to extract the gear. No promises but he said he would try to make it a training excersise. Anyone have the coordinates???????????

[Doug G]

I'm free tomorrow (Saturday) to try and hike up for gear retrieval. Just need to know when and where to meet.

[hhcutlip]

Well, somehow in a window of decent weather, SB S&R managed to fly up and retrieve my gear from the crash site. Everything's really wet, dirty, and full of twigs but I'm happy that it's only been wet for 2 days and not more.

They managed to pack my wing into the free space inside my harness where the back protection goes.

My helmet has a big scratch on the left temple from where I hit a rock. Good helmets rule!

[Ron M]

Hansford,

I'm glad to hear SB S & R got your gear. It would have been a daunting task to retrieve it hiking in. The topa crew that tried to get at the gear from below has to be commended for their generosity and grit for their long hike in and attempt at it.

I'm happy you escaped with only a broken arm. Do you remember how it all started and how high above the terrain you were? Did the manzanita break the fall?

I hope the arm heals quickly...

[hhcutlip]

I wasn't worried about my terrain clearance before the collapse but I can't put a number on it, I certainly wasn't scratching. I felt that I could make safe 360's when I got to the lift. I'm not sure if I went straight down or if I flew back into the hill to some extent.

Basically as I moved from shade to sun I had a huge collapse on my right side and lost a lot of alititude. During the fall my left side really surged until it was right out in front of me or even somewhat below me. At some point the glider did a full spin, I don't know for sure if it was the glider or me that spun. When I saw the riser twist I knew I was in deep trouble and had to throw my reserve. After 1 or 2 revolutions I saw the ground coming up at me before I had a chance to throw so I jst braced for impact. I think the glider was in a really ugly SAT configuration just before I hit because I was upright and moving sideways/backwards and the (spun) glider was moving forwards. This was probably a good thing because it meant that I had a much lower decent rate than I would have had in a regular spiral. I hit the ground mostly moving sideways and at somewhat of a glancing angle, this no doubt also helped minimize my injuries. I went in through a small tree, I don't know exactly what kind but I was still really moving when I hit the ground. It was very disorienting. After I came to rest and kind of got my shit back together (after making my first radio calls) tension in the lines was keeping me from sliding further down the relatively steep slope. I couldn't really get myself out with my broken arm so I cut the lines just above the risers to remove the tension and lower myself and the harness to the ground. I had a lot of trouble getting my hook knife out of it's sheath with one hand. I'm glad I wasn't doing all that in water. Those sheath should have Velcro side so that you can rip the knife out in a hurry. After a while I crawled to a small clearing where S&R got me.

I saw before and after X-rays yesterday and the arm looks pretty good now. The break and the screw were bigger than I imagined.

[Dean S]

I 'm glad to hear that the gear was retrieved so quickly. One of the things that the forest service and search and rescue ask of the flying community is that we extract any gliders and/or gear as quickly as possible following an incident to prevent it from being reported to 911 by others days or weeks later. Sometimes it's easy to get to the location and sometimes it's not. In this case the gear was in a difficult spot and it was very fortunate that search and rescue was able to work the extraction into their training schedule, I hope that they were thanked properly.

Having said that, I just want to make sure the extraction by search and rescue hasn't overshadowed the efforts of those who took the time and effort to make attempts at retrieving the gear as well. Two separate attempts were made by local pilots and as of yet I haven't read a solid THANK YOU to them. Their efforts were very generous and these efforts also help keep us in good standing with the forest service and search and rescue for subsequent rescues.

So, THANK YOU to all involved who took the time to help a fellow pilot out, and the community as a whole. Your efforts are really appreciated.

[hhcutlip]

Dean, you're very right. I've done my best to thank everyone throughout this ordeal in person but there are many for whom I haven't had the chance.

Thank you to everyone, I doubt there's a better bunch of pilots and friends anywhere in the world.

[hhcutlip]

I finally took all the twigs out of my lines and untangled them. To my surprise I found 9 places where lines were broken (all within 5 feet of the canopy) in addition to the places I cut lines (way down by the risers) right after the incident. I put a call in to S&R to talk with the guy that got my wing out of the bushes to see if he had cut any lines but I haven't gotten a response. All 9 breaks were on the far right side, the side that suffered the collapse and violent reinflation and included a couple A's, a B, a C, a couple of brake lines, and all three attachments to the right stabilo. If all these lines really broke while I was still in the air my whole understanding of the second half of the incident changes.

I found a few places where the sheathing was broken and the lines were badly frayed but still intact. I suspect these are from S&R trying to get the wing out.