http://ozreport.com/19.069#1

http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.php?t=32806

Icaro MastR: Spiral dive w/o recovery - batten clips opened

The plastic batten clips (produced by Airborne and used by many other hang
gliding manufacturers) of an Icaro2000 MastR (size M) hang glider with Dacron
sail cloth opened after the pilot steered into a steep banked downward turn. The
glider then entered a stable steep spiral dive with the inside wing billowing
considerably more than the outer wing. The experienced pilot could not end the
spiral dive.

The pilot was lucky to survive, although with serious injuries.

The incident happened one and a half years ago in southern Germany (Rauschberg)
on October 26th, 2013.

Recently the German DHV asked a test pilot (Tim Grabowski, employed by the rigid
wing manufacturer A.I.R.) to perform a test flight in a MastR. Tim also didn’t
succeed in recovering from the spiral dive after the inboard clips (1-5) opened.
He was lucky to deploy his reserve just in time close to the ground.

Two accident investigation reports issued by the DHV (Klaus Tänzler) blaming
solely the pilot have been silently withdrawn from the DHV website.

The DHV then issued a warning urging pilots to inspect their plastic batten
clips, but so far it is reluctant to publish the video of the DHV test flight
(from what I heard though, things get out of control very rapidly with an even
worse spiral dive).

I asked Icaro2000 (Manfred Ruhmer) for an official statement on these incidents,
but so far only received answers not meant to be made publicly available.

Video of the original accident:
https://vimeo.com/106099298

DHV-warning (March 12, 2015):
http://www.dhv.de/db1/source/technicdatareportnotes.php?lang=de&item=233

Questions:

Have any similar incidents been reported elsewhere? Can failing batten clips
lead to a severe or even catastrophic loss of controllability? Is the USHPA
familiar with the problem and have they been informed by the German DHV? Does
the design of the MastR differ from other hang gliding designs making them more
susceptible for batten clips to fail with subsequent severe loss of
controllability?