planeur.net

An unfortunate crash landing that was selflessly shared on YouTube so others may learn from the incident. Here I have a look at the video and give my thoughts as a gliding instructor

Video source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfFLItCtdLg

We had 10-15 kts wind coming from south all day; so when I picked one of the four runaways I was confident that I have headwind when landing in the south direction. After the (sloppy) turn to final my position felt a bit high but still good to me. No problem for my highhly effective spoilers that make my baby drop like a rock. Not in this case. After crossing the center X of the two intersecting runways i was still airborne and the trees & bushes at end of the runway were getting big and scary. At that point I panicked: I pulled up hoping to reduce airspeed down further - the plane "felt" still too fast! I managed to prevent the left wing from dropping - phew -but then the right wing dropped and scratched the ground, turning the plane sideways just before it hit the ground from a few feet up. The landing gear and tail could not withstand such abuse and broke,