A pilot flew fast into the ground today (Sunday) at Quest Air at
around 9:49 AM. The wind was north northeast at about 10 mph. There was a bit of
turbulence below 600' (on take off) but perfectly smooth above (according to
Mitch, the tug pilot). According to one witness the pilot pulled in (the witness
saw the angle of the glider decreasing) between 20' AGL and the ground.
According to the pilot she pulled in as hard as she could because she felt that
the glider had stalled and she needed to increase its air speed. She felt that
she couldn't pull in hard enough on her Wills Wing Sport 2.

The pilot flew into the ground hard, the pilot swung through the control frame,
the glider nosed over, and the nose of the glider hit the pilot in back of her
neck below her Icaro Skyrunner helmet (no damage to the helmet, no damage to the
glider). The only damage seen was to the stem of the vario.

The glider was perfectly level on its nose and the pilot didn't move. Rhett
Radford and Mitch Shipley immediately ran out to the pilot who landed a few
hundred yards south of the club house in the middle of the north/south runway.
Dustin Martin and Mike McFaddin quickly drove out in the Quest Air airport
vehicle. Mitch quickly called 911 and the local Groveland fire truck/EMS vehicle
arrive very quickly (5 minutes?).

The pilot was stabilized by the emergency personnel, two more emergency vehicles
arrived, one a sheriff, and the other the Groveland EMS vehicle. They apparently
called in the Orlando Medical center helicopter as it soon arrived and the pilot
was airlifted out.

Considering the pilot's statements, and the witness statements it appears as
though the pilot was not familiar enough with landing in 10 mph head winds and confused her
slow ground speed with slow airspeed, pulled in too much, and didn't round out
before impact. One witness says that there was no round out and the other says
that the glider upon hitting the ground immediately stopped and nosed over. He
said that it was violent.

The pilot was recording the flight with her GoPro Hero helmet mounted camera.
The camera was off when they saw it according to the witnesses, but I was able
to see that there was a MP4 file stored on the camera, but it is corrupted (the
camera turned off on impact?) and I am not able to recover or view it. Of course,
the video would not show her at all, just the view from her point of view,
which would give an idea of what went wrong in the last few seconds.

According to an initial assessment by the pilots who went to attend to her, the
pilot is likely suffering from two broken arms. She could feel the pain in her
arms and could feel her legs.

To those of us sitting on the park benches by the office and enjoying the
morning it seems to be perfect conditions for a little flight, with a moderate
wind to make landing easy, not too hot (after the front came through during the
night), no clouds, everything very comfortable. The pilot first learned to fly
at Quest Air in 2005. She came sporadically to fly and was flying a easy to fly
and land glider (Wills Wing Sport 2) with a fin to stabilize towing. Her tow was
uneventful.

The pilot had been cautioned by Mitch to keep up her speed on coming into land,
perhaps she took that advice too much to heart when she confused her slow ground
speed with airspeed. Perhaps getting bumped around in some light turbulence made
her want to pull in more than was appropriate.

The turbulence and wind conditions were gentle especially when compared to what
we were flying in on Saturday, with a sixteen mph west wind and thermals at 3
PM. A ten mph head wind would normally be considered ideal for landing in as
your ground speed would be quite slow making for an easy transition from flying
to landing.

Rich Lovelace sent the following photograph:

Should be up on the 6 o'clock news here:
http://www.wftv.com/video/index.html.

http://www.wftv.com/news/23501281/detail.html. They actually had the story
backwards when it first appeared and I emailed the reporter and it was correct
within a few minutes.