This has been a bad week for Powered Paraglider Pilots

First I heard was from a post by my friend Ava. She reminded me to be careful, she also attached a link to a PPG death in Draper Utah.  Jim Peterson was killed when he spiraled into a LDS Chapel during church service.  Jim was a good pilot, he had logged many hours in all conditions.  We have met up a couple times at The Gathering at MV.  He was a good guy, quietly competent.

A couple of hours later I saw on the Colorado PPG Flock that one of Mike Bennett's guys, Sean Hall, had a serious accident, breaking his femur and suffering multiple internal injuries.

Then came the news of Egil.  Wonderful Egil. The guy who counseled me during a very difficult divorce. A man of the world. When he was a student of Roberts's we used to meet at Vance Brand to chase the tourist balloons. It seems Egil also had a serious crash.  Apparently his happened while flying alone.  It's only by the grace of God that his accident had been witnessed by hikers who called for help.  He is intensive care with life threatening injuries.  His daughter is with him.

I thought that was the end of it.  Three is a charm, and all that.

But...this evening, the top post on my news feed was from David Muench's wife Marisa.  She was asking for patience and to please not call her.  Dave is not dead, he is not paralyzed, he doesn't have brain damage.... That's all she knows .... she'll let us know when she knows more. 

Jim Petersen

Sean Hall (Colorado PPG Flock)

Egil Wigert

David Meunch

It's interesting....The Internet has been strangely quiet.  There was just one, long winded rant from Dell, followed by 80 stupid responses, including mine.  I don't know the particulars and It's too soon for incident reports.  That is, .....if this carnage actually gets written up.  A decade ago, we poured over every scratched frame to try to determine what caused the incident.  Jesuit scholars would have been proud of the way we argued the possibilities  Now.... Not so much.  Maybe it's because of the trash talk so prevalent in the PPG digital universe.    Maybe our sport has grown and matured , we aren't the brave pioneer family we once were.  Well, Brothers.... Some of our own are suffering today.  

So far we have done a little kiting and he's had one shot using the Trike Buddy.  In the next few weeks he is going to solo.  I'll do my best to train him and hopefully some good will come from the recent tragedies.  I'm going to take Tony's quest for flight,  more seriously, than last week.