Talk Of Tasers And Death Stimulates Me Into Introspection Again

The Anatomy Of A Fatal Error

The very first thing that a person must realize is that it could happen to anyone at all really.

We can at any time, without warning, make an error which could prove fatal for another human being. This might have already have happened for some of you. Car accidents, medical accident for doctors, everyday dangerous work in the forest industry, all contribute to the steady toll of humans who are killed by bad decisions, poor timing, inexpert execution, poor training, and many other causes. Since every moment is unique and laden with its own criteria, we can only look at the common thread or overview.

The number one link for fatal accidents is a sense of “rush” “get this done” attitude, prior to the accident. A willingness to compromise normal procedure in order to save time, and/or effort, is usually at the root of the sequence of sad events. My buddy Bruce, and I, had landed our hang gliders in the same field.

I had just flown my first flight in a divergent glider. The “Wills Wing Duck,” a slow, early, double surface hang glider, had been modified by me to make it fly faster. In a normal, stable, self correcting hang glider, if the pilot lets go of the base tube and just dangles, the glider is trimmed to fly at just over the stall speed by itself, about 20mph. The glider, will in fact return to this trim position if a pilot lost it in aerobatics, no matter which attitude it began to fall from. No control input is needed.

When I “fixed” the “Duck,” before landing in that field with Bruce, the glider was divergent.