I am angry. That's an emotion isn't it. You have to surpress it don't you. Well it's getting better already. Angry because something happened on our site that shouldn't happen.
Marko, Denis and Tom will remember us flying at Benidorm the other day. They will remember as well that a spanish pilot showed up, with his wife and baby. He flew a ICARO glider. And you remember me "preaching" NOT to land anywhere else than in the designated landing field. The triangular sandy field near the lampposts, near the square roof. If we land anywhere else, we risk the site to be closed immediately. Because take-off and landing is owned by Warner Brothers, americans who are afraid we are gonna sue them if we hurt ourselves, which is ridiculous, but that's how the world goes nowadays.
I do not need to refresh your memory, the guy landed, of course !, and NOT on the designated and only landing field, but downwind (!) on the slope of Terra Mitica, exactly the slope owned by Warner Brothers. Luckily, and believe me this is most important, he didn't hurt himself. But the damage is done, surely the guards have watched him, and it is reported. Damn !!!
Now today at Cabo, it was nice to fly in a smooth easterly wind. Some of the pilots even bummed out, so it was not strong at all.
Now his wife took off, and to be honest nicely. But what she did next is unbelievable, unbelievable, there are no words. She made a 180 degree turn and flew straight towards the cliffs, screaming. We all heard her screaming and were watching the impact. She had about 10 seconds to turn, she was just flying towards the cliffs on the right coming from take off. She had loads of time to give it a slight turn to the left to evade a colision. But no turn at all. Once she hit the rocks, she screamed as hell. Some of us rushed towards her, and I called an ambulance because it was obvious she was hurt very badly.
Afte a lot of chit-chat, an ambulance was gonna be sent, and a helicopter, so we asked not to fly any more, huh. Do you want me to go on ?
Of course there was a french pilot taking off and still in the air, when the heli was approaching. This is no thriller, don't worry. He ignored our calls, he ignored our signs to go landdown on the beach. So helicopter was so nice to hoover away from the scene, thanks !
Anyway, this shouldn't have happened. (God, what a relief just sharing my anger with you.)
This couple don't have the faintest idea what paraglider is all about. They are not schooled enough and have no skills yet. Have no idea about wind, aerology. I wish I wasn't the only one who told them to be careful.
In Benidorm the other day I got angry, because all I said was like blowing in the wind. It felt as if they didn't care, didn't respect my opinion, my (yes) knowledge (I prefer to be humble).
One more thing, helicopter, ambulance, it is easter, it is now packed with tourists, and this on our fragile site of Cabo de Santa Pola that everybody loves.
You know what else, I got sad, because I saw an instructor just filming it all, the whole rescue operation.
I hope she is allright and gets better soon.
3 comments:
I am the guy about whom Nick has written so “accurately”. I want to let you now what has happened. Let´s come to the point:
The Terra Mitica flying place. (Finestrat, Sierra Cortina)The moment I have lost altitude there was the one the conditions have changed. And - at the same time - I was far below of the top-landing-level in this moment. My wife told me that Nick has cold right away his client-pilots back. So I assume that he could connect my situation with this new conditions too. Right in this situation I was far, far away from the designed landing field. Much too far simply!
I guess that only Superman and other supernatural heroes could have left this uncomfortable situation. Okay. After Nicks more than clear explanations I was desperately thinking what to do in order to avoid any problem for the comunity of pilots. I did not forget this point at any moment. How and why should I? So I have tried (instead of taking the only fully secure landing in Terra Mitica) to come as far as anyhow possible to the next public road. There is now heavy trafic. Doing this I took quite a personal risk. Finally I could make it about 150m far away from the public roundabout.
So everybody can imagine how nice it feels to read Nicks lines here! If the officials ever close this mountain I suffer probably more than a lot of people because I am from Finestrat. It is my local mountain.
Respect my wifes accident the other day it is easy to imagine that nobody is stupid enough to fly directly against a mountain. She will recover from this accident and be completely fine again. But she does not remember anything anymore. Evidently she had a kind of very serious tecnical problem. She flew in Santa Pola several times without any problem. I am simply happy that she is fine again. And a lot of people what contacted us feel so. I have read about her accident in another blog too. But there was no attempt to let her look like an idiot! How can somebody write “this should not have happened”. Shit happens and non of us lifts the finger and yells “Me, me, please.”
We are local pilots and surely interested to maintain the best possibel circumstances. I see often enough accidents. But always the people take care about each other in these situations. Nick did not ask me personally how I am after my landing in Finestrat. Thats all I can say. He could not see me landing neither. So I guess that he suddenly knew when he saw me again the other day...
We are always among the local pilots but I have never heard any of this kind of comments what I had to read here. And there is alwayas a lot of corious stuff to see. It is clear that we did not like to read this and some other people do not like it neither. Not asking us any personal question does not let it look very objective.
The locals we now never complain that there are some professionals among all of us who carry loads of tourist-pilots who often enough show their own “stunts”or behave ruthless or (seeing it a lot more positiv) clumsy. Surely there is NO pilot who did not have difficulties, undesigned landings or smaller or bigger accidents. So thank you for welcoming us in the club, Nick!
I would appreciate a personal word among growing up people before leaving all your feelings out in a blog what the local comunity reads. Surely it helps to avoid future discrepancies and is a contribution to a more secure flight for everybody.
Close to the roundabout I landed - there is NO (instead of "now")heavy traffic. Spelling mistake, sorry.
Hola Dominic,
First, I was very happy to hear that you are allright first accident, and then again very happy that your wife was well as well after her accident two days later.
First, my concern was YOU when landing badly at Terra Mitica. One of my pilots have seen you being dragged along the rocky mountain side. He saw you walking away from it. So I drove down, call it a day, driving down to the only landing field we may use to pick up my pilots. I saw you driving by, back to where you live, Finestrat. Another reason to assume you were allright no ? My foreign visiting pilots were worried about your being, and were amazed you drove off just like that ...
two days later I saw you at take off cliffs Santa Pola, wanted to talk to you after everything calmed down, me being at work. The I saw the accident. And who called the ambulance you think ? Well I did. I made sure they got on the right track, to help your wife. I stayed at take off to make sure she had all the assistance she could get. When I saw other pilots and friends rushing towards the scene, I stayed local to make sure when police, ambulance arrived I could help them out finding the easiest way to get to the accident.
Your bad landing could have been easily avoided. I briefed you before your flight that there was only one landing field and no other option. This to avoid losing the site as happened before years ago. The winds died off, as a pilot you should know this, always keeping the landing field in view, always making sure you can make it. And for instance when you see others landing, wondering why all of a sudden they bum out. Especially when that landing field is the only one to be used. All my pilots were as always on my frequencie.
When you fly on your own at a site, you should be aware of possible dangers and rules. I do guide professionaly, but only for already licensed pilots. I cannot take the responsibility of guiding pilots who do not have their pilot, club pilot license yet. And I am certainly not entitled to stop people from flying any site because they do not have the skills, experience yet.
Nevertheless, if I can avoid an accident or any harm, I am the first one to help out. That's why I briefed you thoroughly at Terra Mitica when you arrived.
Second accident due to a technical problem ? What could it have been, knot in the brake lines at the most. Should have been noticed when taking off at this 'users-friendly'-take off. Aborting the take off, or if too late, steering with back risers was an option as well then.
Anyway, I hope you and your wife, sorry don't know your wife's name,
will continue flying. So we can keep on sharing our precious and unfortunately 'fragile' sites for many years.
cheers,
Nick
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