So many 747s filled with dead paragliders - a nightmare

I was discussing with a retired airline captain the recent near collision between a Southwest passenger airliner leaving New Jersey for Cancun, Mexico, and a Fedex freight transport, on approach. It appears that the FedEx heavy was instructed by an utterly incompetent FAA air controler to land in fog on instruments on the same runway where the tower had just cleared the Southwest airliner to take off.

The FedEx heavy cleared the tail of the Southwest airliner by less than 100 feet! At that moment, realizing he was in the hands of idiots, the ex-military FedEx pilot basically told the tower that they were full of shit, and did a go-around.

The conversation with my friend lead to a comparison to the historic Tenerife airport disaster of March 27, 1977 that cost 583 lives. This horrific accident was the worst aviation disaster in history. In conditions of thick fog similar to the New Jersey incident, a loaded KLM 747 passenger airliner was cleared for take off as another loaded 747 was stupidly instructed by the tower to cross the same runway ahead of it. Accelerating blindly on his takeoff roll, the KLM pilot suddenly saw the other 747 emerge from the fog broadside, too close to abort. Although he had not yet achieved flying speed, he pulled back on his controls, lifting the huge plane off the ground in a stall. It struck the upper fuselage of the other 747, wheels down, killing almost all aboard, and then crashed back onto the runway, bursting into flames.

I had mentioned to my friend that in 2010 or so, I’d had a disturbing dream, surely inspired by this very accident. I had recently tried to explain to the paraglider pilots on Paragliding Forum the reason why they were dying so quickly, as compared to hang glider pilots, who were not. I named my theory the Paragliding Dead Man’s Curve. It was not rocket science or anything complicated. It was just pretty obvious to this old hang glider pilot that when the paraglider canopy balls up in turbulence on landing approach (or take off), you can die.

You can die. You can accelerate vertically to impact and die because you no longer have an airfoil. To be frank, it’s stupid to fly something that will do that.

Hang gliders generally don’t do that. They have an airframe. That airframe holds the airfoil in place. All the time. And it offers significant protection to the pilot in a crash. And it usually has a horizontal vector and doesn’t go straight down to impact the ground like a plummeting paraglider pilot does under fluttering fabric.

Global paragliding fatalities were approaching 800 deaths in 2010. I was greatly concerned. I don’t like to see anyone die. As a pilot, I especially don’t like to see pilots die. If they do, I hope they had a fighting chance. I was only offering advice from my years of freeflight experience in order to save their lives. I was unprepared for their shockingly immature, ignorant, clownish, unexpected and overwhelmingly pathetic response. They cried about my website: Mythology of the Airframe - titled after their inept refusal to recognize the obvious safety benefits of an airframe surrounding the pilot in a crash. They cried about my advice on Paragliding Forum. Boo, hoo, hoo:

"It's horrible. My eyes are bleeding! It should be banned!"
(C'est horrible, j'ai les yeux qui saignent. Ça aussi ça devrait être interdit!)

"Your acceptance of Rick Masters as an authority on paragliding, apparently without taking the time to learn anything about him, or talk to any people who are actually involved with the sport—we are all concerned about safety—is pretty disappointing."

"Rick Masters, whose aim is to stop people paragliding, because of his mistaken view that the lack of a rigid airframe necessarily makes paragliding unacceptably dangerous."

"The 'airframe' bullshit is just that."

"Paragliding, one of the most dangerous sports in the world?????
Be serious."

"Paragliders have got much safer over the last 20, 15 and 10 years."

"His statistics are likely bull****.
Surely not down as much as he indicates."

"Unabomber!"

"His fundamental argument - that an airframe is always safer than a canopy - does not stand up to closer inspection statistically or theoretically. He ignores the fact that collapses are recoverable. That even torn canopies can still fly."

"2010 - 48 death, doesnt mean ANYTHING."

"Rick is a complete wanker."

"Ridiculous trolling."

"Ricky doesn't like PG."

"Like a religious zealot, he is not interested in facts or discussion unless they support his rigidly defined position."

"Fucking lunatic."

“Doing more harm than good to our sport."

"Rants."

"Oh dear, is he still going? ...maybe doctoring those links so that they're not real, clickable links wouldn't be a bad idea."

"Nothing says crackpot like pointing out on your own website all the people who think you are an idiot!"

"Rick has no understanding of what is going on."

"Uninformed claptrap!”

“Not useful data, just a collection of quotes, news-links and other associated cobblers to provide a list which he uses to backup his 'already made-up' mind.”

"Cherry picking to support an argument."

"Rick Masters pontificating."

"Hate site."

"A pointless list."

"A programmed response."

"Rubbish."

"Preconceived ideas."

"Neglects the whole picture."

"Incomprehensible nonsense."

"A partisan attempt to discredit."

"The interpretation is totally nuts."

"Unbelievable."

"The level of stupidity is unbearable."

"We all are gonna die. Everything what we do, walking on the street, driving a car, brings us to possible death."

"A huge cover up about hanggliding safety statistics in the US."

“Although these deaths remain socially unacceptable, they are well into the average range of other sports with a risk."

"So much dedication with nearly religious fanatism put on such a secondary subject is suspicious."

"You could make the same website about fatalities of people killed by hammers."

"He will never make a useful contribution to Paraglider Safety."

"A collection of nastiness."

"An utterly pointless discussion."

"You could say the same about motorcycling."

"Drivers are in far more denial about the risks they are taking everytime they get behind the wheel, than we paragliders are everytime we launch."

"The same air that will collapse you on launch in a paraglider will give you sticky wing in a hang glider. The range of outcomes is the same."

"Where are these complacent pilots that you speak of so knowledgeably?"

Even the unelected president of the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association chimed in:

Rick Masters is a fool with an agenda. He knows that his stats are misleading and incomplete.

Virtually all incidents are a result of the pilot doing something wrong.

STOP THIS NONSENSE NOW.

It was then that I suddenly realized that nothing I could say, no arguments I could make, no evidence I could present would mean anything to these deluded fools. I had unexpectedly stumbled upon the greatest denialist enclave in mankind’s entire history of sports.

Then I had a dream. A nightmare. I woke up in a cold sweat.

I was trekking through a steaming Central American jungle, hacking away at vegetation with a machete, when I came across a huge 747 rising out of the jungle before me, intact but rusty and stained, resting silently on its landing gear.  I climbed the steps leading up to the open door.  There, inside, were the bodies of hundreds of paraglider pilots, harnessed up, sitting in their seats, pale and dead, mouths open but unable to speak.  It was as if they were asking me to speak for them.  Horrified and astounded, I walked the length of all the cabins.  There was not a single empty seat.  I stumbled out the door, utterly distraught. I looked up.  In the distance, sticking up above the treetops, was the tail fin of another 747...

The magnitude of what I had found only then began to sink in.

Today, soaring parachutists are about to fill the eighth 747 with the bodies of their dead. With freeflight paragliding fatalities exceeding 2,250 and powered paragliding fatalities eclipsing 500, these idiots really need to ask themselves what the hell is going on. If they don’t, their friends and family need to ask them: Is it really Rick Masters who is the problem with paragliding - or is it something else?

If it’s something else, What the hell is It?

They know. We all know.

I know what it is, and I have described it in great detail for years. Nothing has changed. The fatality rates remain constant year after year.

For greater insight, see The Problem with Paragliding at USHGA.AERO.