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Pilot Details

Age: 0 Weight: 235 Gender: Highest rating held at the time of the incident: Pilot experience level:

Gear Details

Wing Brand: Model: Edel Control XL DHV1 Size: Paramotor Frame: FB Monster 65lbs with

Incident Details

January 1, 2006 Location of the incident: , Type of Incident:

I was flying on the beach during a vacation / fly in over July 4 weekend With about 5 other pilots. I was flying somewhat low 20′-50′ down the beach about 30 degrees off into the wind. I was waving and hooting at anything that took notice .. not too mature but hey we only live once.

As I was going along the wind came over some houses and there were some people below me waving at me so I came around and got down about 3′ off the deck and did a full power climb with brakes to cause a surge to swoop down on them. As the wing pivoted over head it made a bad sound, “POP” and was behaving badly so I checked the surge instead of dive bombing the people below probably a good choice since I had lost 2 upper lines in the middle of my glider. One A and one B.

Now I was about 4 miles away from the LZ and it would have been walking to get back since there was no driving on the beach. So I started to try to climb .. but the wing was not flying very well so I kept adding power. At full Throttle on the monster I was holding altitude at about 50′ so I kept flying away from the LZ until I got about 100′ or so I would not be committing to a downwind landing. Full power for like 5 min’s and I was back .. The glider flared fine and all was good.

I would have landed if I would have known my glider was failing as badly as it was, as it could have unzipped at any time. I have since stopped flying that glider. Since we checked some lines and they were way below the 50% new breaking strength minimum they were more like 30%. I think the combo of the rotor from the house and my surging the glider placed enough load on the 2 lines to break them in there weakened state. The glider was old, about 2 years, and about 250 hrs.

Flight Window: Wind Speed: Type: Phase of Flight: Type of Injury: Collateral Damage: Analysis of the incident (additional input by the incident investigation team): Photos (if available):

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