KLAUS HOLIGHOUSE ACCIDENT
APOPISO
NIMBUS 4 GLIDER. I AM TRYING TO GET THE SPECIFICS ON THIS . CONTACT ME AT
APO...@AOL.COM. THANKS
Andrea Schlapbach
In July & Aug 94 I was the Chief of the Muenster-Soaring-Campus @ Muenster
in the alpes-area of Switzerland (4500 ft AMSL). This airport is the
closest to Holighaus' accident site. Due to the accident we had some
guys from the Swiss FAA called BAZL on our airport doing part of the SAR
organization work.
Klaus Holighaus took off on Tuesday August 9th 94 about at noon on Samaden
airport (in a valley called Engadina in the eastern Swiss Alpes at 5500 ft
AMSL) with his Nimbus 4 "XX" with the intention to fly heading west over
the French border and back again (2 x 180 km). Due to the thermals he
turned before his intended turning point. I was flying the same day in the
same area: on the afternoon 1-2/8 Cu @ 9000 ft AMSL (not that high!), in
the late afternoon up to 8/8 with a base coming down; the thermals were
not the best ones, but flyable. Holighaus flew back and had his last
radio-contact with one of the Muenster-pilots about at 18:30 on the
Nufenen-pass close to our airport, saying that he wants to try to reach
Samaden (still 100 kms to fly but possible at this time). On the routing
he took from there on untill and including his accident site, he was
always within the reachable cone of airports in Ticino (Ambri, Lodrino).
Shortly after sunset (9:30 p.m.) we had a phone by Samaden airport missing
Holighaus. He had no ELT on his plane which is not unusual in
Switzerland. About at 10:30pm it was obvious that there was no message from
neither airports nor himself - SAR was activated.
Wednesday, the weather was bad (rain, deep clouds) so the SAR-helicopters
could just check the vorderrheintal/hinterrheinthal-area. Imaging the area
of the last part of his flight between Nufenen and Samaden, flying almost
directly towards Samaden, there is still an area of about 20 x 100 kms in
the highest Swiss alpes to look for - without any knowledge of his
position!
The night wednesday->thursday was extremely cold and rainy/icy - if he had
survived till now blessed, the night would have been too much.
On thursday aug. 11th the SAR-action reduced the area to the northern part
of Ticino (still 10 x 40 kms) - took off at 9am with 8 helicopters (4
Swiss, 2 German, 2 Italian). At about 6pm the wreck was sighted on the
eastern side of Rheinwaldhorn (close to the Adula-pass at Aquila/Ticino)
at 8000 ft AMSL in a complete demolished matter. No need to say what
happened to the pilot.
The position of the plane (close to a crest, all parts broken but lying at
the same place) and the pilot (still in the wreck, no open chute, ...) led
to the following hypothesis:
Flying close to the relief, he wanted to pass a crest with only a little
of altitude to through-fly:
#######
###### ##########
########### O ########### O: intended path
############X ############# X: resulted path
############################
Some downwinds and miscalculation of the situation, not having enough
spare room to turn away to the left resulted in a collision with the
rocks. In this situation, there is no time left for any further
reaction - the impact came immediatly. No chance to survive.
Sorry to tell you the story, but:
* do NOT fly too close to the relief
* as flater the mauntain as farer from it
* as stronger the wind as farer to it
* always fly with the worst-case that could happen (downwind, ...)
* always enough altitude to overfly crests
* fly with a path-alternative
* be also aware of other obstacless (planes, electrical wires,
hanggliders, ...)
* ... (never ending)
But have fun in the air!
Andrea
--
Andrea Schlapbach
ETH Zuerich/Switzerland
Stanford Uni/CA USA sch...@leland.stanford.edu