Malibu closure

[pengoquin]

While the tragic accident at Malibu and the subsequent action taken by the Santa Monica Mountain Conservany are obviously related, but I feel that out of respect for the pilot we should open a new disscussion line, seperating the accident from the closure.

Doug is right on target here. It is very important to note that the Conservancy cited the misrepresentation that there was an agreement in place and that "Commercial "activities were allowed. It seems that history has repeated it self.

[Don F]

I would wager that the closure has more to do with the powered paraglider crash that started a fire a couple months ago than the most recent accident. It might be a good idea to distinguish between the two in any negotiations for future access.

Don

[glenny]

hey guys... the closure issue is very disturbing. i have been around long enough to see many local sites closed for a variety of reasons includins: rincon mountain, solimar, round mountain, wildwood mesa, hill canyon, paitus, point sal, yousemite ave, and you get the idea the list goes on. we currently have several sites that are endangered including wilcox, bates, and more mesa for starters. As you may recall wilcox was almost closed last year due to 4 incidents which occured in a rather short span, rather simlilar but less serious than the current malibu incidents. Bates has a gentleman taking pictures and reporting to some local authority in regards to our flying. more mesa has the air space issue which should get resolved,. but it is only a matter of time before more people land in trees on someones property...In the past we have gooten away with reactive solutions and internal management....currently there are groups actively trying to restrict paragliding and hanggliding at all three site... actively... it seems to me like we need more proactive engagement to reduce the chance of site closures.We have been fairly lucky here in SB up to this point...for one thing we need to address and identify reasons why a site may be closed and limit these influences... we also need more communication between pilots.... what if the malibu pilots want to fly moore mesa this weekend? do they know it's closed and that flying there would ruin any arrangement we have in the works. Who is responsible for these communications? certainly many variables to discuss here, but certainly a growing issue as the numbers of paragliders increase and the number of sites decrease. i personally would like to be able to fly here for the next 20 years...atleast

glenny

[MikeP]

http://malibusurfsidenews.com/stories/2 ... 14006.html
http://malibusurfsidenews.com/blog/2008 ... html#links
http://www.lamountains.com/parks_search.asp

MM