MIDAIR COLLISION – Correction of the news on the website

Unfortunately yesterday´s information about the midair collision contained some mistakes.

The news has been deleted and is replaced by this information:

At the first competition day we had a mid-air collision between GX and 8K. The collision happened at an altitude of 2200 m approximately 10 km South West from Ruzomberok town. Only GX had a proximity warning device. Both gliders were damaged. 8K had his tail and bottom damaged but could fly back to the Prievidza airport. GX was more severely damaged losing part of the right wing and had his canopy broken but could land on the Ruzomberok airfield. Luckily the pilots were not injured.

The organizers heard both pilots and analyzed the igc flight records of their gliders. They came to the conclusion that GX was circling to the right in a thermal when 8K was entering the same thermal. For unknown reason the two pilots didn´t see each other. 8K entered the thermal in a normal way considering other gliders he saw in the same thermal but he didn´t see GX. When he started to turn right, he suddenly he saw GX coming from behind and below. He pulled up but couldn´t avoid the collision.

According to the organizers opinion, although unintentionally, the pilot of 8K created an extremely dangerous situation by cutting the circle flown by GX. Considering that it is the full responsibility of the pilot entering a thermal to make sure that he does not interfere with a glider already circling in this thermal, the director of the competition decided to disqualify the pilot of 8K for the day and to exclude him temporarily from the competition for the next two flying days.

He also allowed the pilot of GX to replace his glider which cannot be repaired for this competition.

At the briefing the competition director announced his decision and showed the traces. He also urged all pilots to look out all the time and fly safely.

Jozef Snirc - Competition Director 

Prievidza July 6th 2010