Medellin Mid-air

Many thanks for watching this video and especially to those who have taken the time to read the blog and fully understand what is going on. It was a difficult decision to upload this video, but we decided to do so to hopefully help some similar incidences happening in future.

I can see that if the few seconds before the crash is viewed alone, it is easy to to make the assumption that XT (on the red glider) flew into the orange glider, but I assure you that as the incident happened right in front of me, this is far from the truth. Please keep an open mind, take the time to read the explanations and remember it is very easy to jump to conclusions.

To explain; The orange glider pilot was thermalling inside the established turns of the other gliders (above and below) forcing many including myself to change our turns. At the moment before the incident she was flying away from XT. XT was continuing a wide turn in the thermal like the other pilots and as she had been for many turns as you can see from the track log. Then, the girl on the orange glider turned back into the path of XT without clearing her turn. The reason why XT didn't turn away was a combination of XT keeping a look out at others in the thermal at an unlucky moment, and the sheer speed of the closure.

Most importantly though; video evidence/witness accounts or not, the other pilot admitted fault and apologised. We hold no grudges and hope she learns from this incident as XT did.

We are not saying we were flying perfectly as there is always some improvements that can be made. In particular XT has learnt the hard way to keep more distance from erratic pilots and I'm sure with more experience, both will be more able to look out and react in time in such situations.

We have changed the video title for those who were offended, but the original was simply an expression of a true emotion, and a valid one considering the life threatening nature of the event! It was not at all meant as an accusation against the other pilot.

Many thanks must go to the climbers who lowered XT to safety, please check out their website for some alternative activities to flying in Medellin:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Psiconautica-Agencia-de-Aventura-Operador-Turistico/178086492233879

Thanks again for watching and I wish all pilots safe and fun flying.

For the full story, please read here: http://www.pgblog.info