Disgrace!!!
By Itamar Neuner
On May
the 11th 1993 I smashed, crushed and
shattered my right ankle while showing off at Ga’ash.
In the hospital they fixed, stitched and screwed everything back
together again, and sent me home for four months of deliberations: do I go back
to paragliding again, or is it too dangerous?
In the end I decided to resume paragliding,
but on the one condition, that from now on I’ll fly so carefully that there
would be no chance of another accident.
*
* *
Ever since then – no pilot can be more
careful than I am:
Just as I check my Boeing before each flight with El-Al, so I check
my paraglider and equipment.
Before each and every flight I review the
mistakes I did in the last one, and commit myself not to repeat them again. Just
before launch I close my eyes and rehearse the slogan: “Maturity and
Responsibility! Fly as safely as I can!” And I remind myself again that
accidents hurt… very much!!!
I never take my hands off the controls to
help myself into the seat after take-off, or to bring the speed-bar to my feet.
I don’t scratch at low altitude over the bushes and treetops looking for lift,
and I don’t try to find one more thermal just before I land.
I force myself to be scared even if I’m not.
I don’t let myself be tempted to fly when conditions are too strong, even if
others do. I never fly alone. I don’t take
part in competitions and don’t fly competition-rated gliders. I am
protected by the safest harness, wear a special
paragliding helmet with full face protection, and special paragliding boots.
After every flight I give myself a thorough
de-briefing: was the flight conducted as safely as I had vowed to? Did I keep
my distance from the ground and from other gliders in the air? Did I take any unnecessary risks?
In short: I decided, and I fulfill: I try to
fly as safely as I can!
* * *
We are in France, Gideon and myself, on a
paragliding vacation in the area around Annecy. We have been lucky with
the weather – open skies every day with just the right amount of clouds. Every
day has been a flying day, and most of the flights were not bad at all. Today
conditions look a bit interesting, with clouds building up since early in the
morning. We decide to use the opportunity and go for long distances. Gideon
decides to circumnavigate Lake Annecy; I choose to go east,
towards Chamonix.
We launch at noon, and set out on our
ventures.
At first – I scratch with the rest of the herd at take-off. Then a first thermal to 1700m’, up the slope
of the massive mountain behind. Dark and heavy clouds are beginning to form
over the snow-covered peak. Thermals are strong and so is the wind.
A bird of prey marks the next thermal. I join in and we spiral up,
ascending the face of the mighty granite mountain. After an hour I am at 2500m’
and pass over the top, squeezing between the summit and the heavy cloud just
100 m’ above. Mountaineers - heavily laden with equipment and heavy backpacks -
wave to me from the mountaintop.
I wave back, and consider my next step: 2500 meters above sea level is
not much, if I want to cover any distance. Should I climb up into the cloud? It
looks dark, heavy and active. “Maturity and Responsibility” I remind
myself, and give up the idea. So I level out, head east, and… enter the down
wash behind the mountain.
Minus 3, minus 4, I’m falling out of the sky!
It took me an hour to get to 2500 m’; it takes me ten minutes to drop
back to 1000. The mountain, behind me, seams to be climbing into the cloud,
while I sink fast into the valley. I find a low hill covered with stubble
fields, and know this is my last chance: either I find lift here or it’s the
end of the flight.
It takes a l
o n g time, and a
l o t of patience. But
in the end I am riding a thermal again, and carrying on to the next ridge – a mighty black granite spar, thrusting out of the white snow
cover. In company with a sailplane, white, shiny, and glittering in the sun, we
climb together to the crest. The clouds
look dark and fierce, and behind the ridge I see rain showers. There is no gap
between the top of the mountains and the clouds. “Maturity and
Responsibility” – I repeat to myself, and decide to give up the
original idea of flying to Chamonix. I turn south,
to open skies and sunshine.
The wind is getting stronger. My progress is very slow. For a long time
I’m stuck over a ridge covered with dense forest, and wonder whether I should
follow the wind into the narrow valley behind, or else continue south along the
ridge. In the end I make a good decision: I’ve been in the air now for more
than four hours; it’s been a beautiful trip. The time has come to land.
I leave the ridge, fold in my wing tips, and descend to land in the
small town of Albertville. From there
I’ll take a bus back to Aneccy.
I find the bus
and train terminal, and choose a field nearby to land on. It’s a large ploughed field, free of
obstacles, on the outskirts of the town, just beyond the first row of houses. A
farmer is working in the middle of the field, burning trimmings in a small
bonfire. Smoke is rising from the
bonfire, indicates the wind speed and direction. The wind is blowing gently up
the valley, at a steady speed and direction.
No doubt, an ideal place for
an easy landing.
I head for the
field and descend, while turning into the wind to determine its strength. The
wind is definitely not strong, and I have no problems whatsoever of
penetration. But I do seem to have a
slight problem getting down, and 200m above the ground the air becomes very
rough, turbulent, and buoyant. I fold in
my tips again and stand on the speed-bar, careful not to cause a frontal
collapse in the bumpy air. It is very
difficult indeed to loose height. I lean over with all my weight, forcing my
glider into a spiral dive. I manage to
lose a couple dozens of meters, then again – a strong jerk and screams from the
variometer, and I am tossed up again into the sky.
And all the
while beneath me – the farmer is gathering trimmings and adding them to the
bonfire, and the smoke rises gently, drifting slowly up the valley in the light
wind.
Finally I
manage to lose enough height and turn to the row of houses at the edge of the
field for my final approach. I do a couple of wide ‘S’s to lose the last of my
height, aiming for a touchdown in the middle of the big field, near the farmer.
Then – a sudden mighty gust!
My wing disappears and collapses behind me, making loud rustling noises
of flapping cloth. I am shaken brutally and swung about violently, the whole
world spinning around me.
The gust passes after a few seconds, the air calms down again. My
faithful Apco Futura
immediately regains its stability, and I steady it back into controlled flight.
The farmer is still working in his field, smoke from the bonfire rising
straight up. But I have been thrown some 100 meters back, and have lost a lot
of height. My landing field is beyond the houses; no chance that I can reach it
now.
I’m fifty meters above a dense neighborhood crammed with houses, all
with sloping tiled roofs, clay chimney pots, and power lines.
Forty meters… bicycles in the street, electric cables, three-story
houses, a narrow driveway between them.
Thirty meters… fifteen…. Seven!
It’s an old house, black stone tiles. Land on it? Or squeeze down
between the two houses to the narrow driveway?
A split-second decision – brakes to the knees – and I’m on the roof!!!
On a tiled roof with a frightening slant, three stories high, and on the
down-wind side!
With great anxiety I watch the canopy slowly sliding down to the edge
of the roof. If another gust comes – the canopy will pull me off the roof,
three stories down to the ground. I must get out of the harness, and do it
fast!!!
I lie on my belly, one hand holding a jagged stone tile. I stick my
foot into a notch between the tiles, and with my other hand I open the harness
buckles and try to get out of it. Something is interfering and holding me back.
It’s the camera, tied by a line to the harness. I untie it quickly. But now
something is pulling my head: the radio cable, still plugged into the helmet.
In the meantime the canopy has slid down to the rusty gutter, and
begins to dangle over the edge.
I’m out of the harness, at last. And still alive! But this is no time
to start tormenting myself for the awful mishap I have done. First I must pull
in the paraglider carefully, and find a way to get off this roof.
People start to gather below, shouting to me in French. I ignore them, stay with the helmet on my head
for safety, and begin pulling in the canopy. It’s stuck. It’s got entangled on
the rusty gutter, with the lines jammed in the tiles.
There’s a small hatch
in the middle of the roof. It opens, and
out of it appears one of the residents. He seems to be a nice young man. He’s not mad at me, nor is he cursing me for
any damage I might have done to his roof. He only explains very carefully that the
official landing zone in Albertville
is two kilometers down the road…
I ask him very
politely if he would be so kind and take a couple of photographs for this
article. Then together we start to pull in the paraglider, with me having to
crawl out over the edge to release the lines from the ramshackle gutter. I
stuff the wing into its bag, and try to pass the paraglider down through the
hatch. But the hatch is too small, so I have no choice but to wrap it all up in
one big bundle and throw it all the way down to the driveway, three stories
below.
Later while folding up the paraglider in the driveway, the wind was
already blowing with strong gusts. And when the landlady kindly drove me to the
station, trees were bending down to the ground in 60 km/h squalls!…
Now I’m licking my wounds – luckily, not wounds to the body, only to my
ego - and cursing myself for having let such an incident happen. And I’m trying
to figure out how I could have prevented it.
The gust that blew me back was
the first gust of the afternoon gale. There were no indications of what was
about to happen, apart – maybe – from the strong turbulence, and the difficulty
I had trying to come down at first. The field I chose was big and wide, with
smoke from the bonfire indicating light and steady wind. I did carry out my ‘S’s over a built up area,
but that is so often done in France, to be followed by a nice
smooth glide to the landing zone.
But all these are merely excuses. If I want to go on flying until I’m
eighty, it’s about time I started flying as safely as can be…
Itamar Neuner
, 55, is an airline pilot, lives in Israel, and flies an Apco Futura.
