I'm reporting on reports that I heard from Scott Barrett who examined the glider and spoke with Mikhail Karmazin, a Russian pilot who lives in Sydney, but not the Russian pilot who flew the glider, Sergei Sukleta. Both Scott and Mikhail have reviewed this article. Mikhail wishes to say that he is not a glider designer or engineer and feels unqualified to make any statements about the glider or the accident.

Scott, who is staying with us at the Alpenhorn, related what he found when he looked at the glider parts. He stated that one of the carbon cross bars was bowed back (horizontally) toward the tail (as the leading edges were squeezed together) and that one the cross bar buckled between the cross bar junction and the cross bar/leading edge junction and broke under the load (which we assume must have exceeded 6 G's).

Mikhail showed Scott the side wire tag on the side that the cross bar broke and Scott noted that it was elongated, indicating the extreme load.

After the cross bar broke there was additional damage, but that was incidental as it occurred after the major damage was done and the glider was no longer capable of flying.

It is unusual for a topless glider to break in positive load. Neither Scott nor Mikhail knew why the glider was experiencing such a load as indicated by the tang elongation. This would indicate that the glider was flown outside its load envelope and consequentially broke.