This incident happened to PPPPC pilot John Black
on January 6, 2008.
Most of John's previous experience was flying in the smooth air of an onshore breeze at the beach. Flying near the mountains of Colorado presented new and dangerous conditions as shown below...
Near ground level, and within a few miles of the mountains, the wind was blowing out of the east. However, a check of the winds aloft (accessible from our Weather Forecast Page) would have shown that the upper level winds were actually out of the west. As illustrated above, rotor can be induced near the mountains as the winds drop out of the mountains toward the plains below. John was unfortunate enough to suffer a complete wing collapse in such conditions.
Additional coverage of this incident can be found at the following sites...
Most of John's previous experience was flying in the smooth air of an onshore breeze at the beach. Flying near the mountains of Colorado presented new and dangerous conditions as shown below...
|
Near ground level, and within a few miles of the mountains, the wind was blowing out of the east. However, a check of the winds aloft (accessible from our Weather Forecast Page) would have shown that the upper level winds were actually out of the west. As illustrated above, rotor can be induced near the mountains as the winds drop out of the mountains toward the plains below. John was unfortunate enough to suffer a complete wing collapse in such conditions.
Additional coverage of this incident can be found at the following sites...
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