Return to the incident list: Incident List fatal paraglider and truck accident PPG Type: Type of Injury:

Pilot Details

Age: 40 Weight: Gender: Highest rating held at the time of the incident: Pilot experience level:

Gear Details

Wing Brand: Model: Size: Paramotor Frame: with

Incident Details

June 22, 2010 Location of the incident: , Type of Incident:

KSDK — A 40-year-old Ballwin man died Sunday morning in a paragliding accident near Columbia, Illinois. The accident happened along Ramsey Road just before 11 a.m., according to Columbia Police Chief Joe Edwards. The victim was attempting to take off from a field when he lost control of the paraglider. His parachute was caught by a gust of a wind and pushed toward Ramsey Road. When the pilot landed, he was struck by a passing Ford F-250 pickup truck. The pilot was taken to St. Anthony’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Additional Account with more detail: On June 13 at 09:45am pilot Andrey Azarskov took off from the field near Collumbia,Il adjacent to golf coarse departing south along the . The weather conditions were moderate. Ground winds were about 2 mph no thermal activities at all. Andrey decided to go for another flight and he set up he’s wing this time departing west with the county road across on the end of the runway. Traffic on this road is very low since golfers arriving and departing the golf coarse create most of the traffic. The road it self is about 1 mile strait stretch so visibility of the traffic is pretty good up to certain extend. The Other side of the road is just empty open farm fields. This site is not recommended for beginners due to the short runways in any directions (300ft north/south and 200ft (east/west.) He laid out his wing departing west and started running. Witnesses claimed that he struggled on initial take off but he finally managed to get the glider overhead and under control. But he’d used up most of runway and decided to extend his run across the road. Just as he was getting lifted, running across the road, a 1996 Ford F-250 came from his right (north). They couldn’t see each other because the pilot was focused on his wing (possibly checking visually) along with a big sign and trees to restrict seeing any oncoming vehicles up to last few seconds. The truck driver wouldn’t see the glider from distance because of the trees or the pilot because of the low sign. So neither saw the other until the last few seconds. The truck was slightly faster than pilot so the impact was to the rear side corner where the bumper is attached to the vehicle. Tragedy of the whole accident is that the pilot was caught by bumper and possibly slammed the pilot against the pavement and rolled him around which, from my point of view caused almost instant death. The witnesses tried to help him out of the harness but there was nothing to save anymore.

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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