Glider Near Spins into Ground & Emergency Landing: Instructor Reacts! 

Hello Tim. Nice to see a little debriefing in a nice community. To date, I have 5 engine failures in 9000 flight hours. I think we will make an interesting video later, when I can publish all the videos with the ASG 32 MI failures. 1. In the first case (August 2020) there was a loss of power, the takeoff continued, since it was more dangerous to interrupt it. 2. The second case (February 2022) is very similar to this one and in exactly the same position with similar wind and altitude - loss of power, but the engine was running, I managed to turn 180 to the left, the engine stopped (the rotor jammed) approximately above the windsock of the airfield. I managed to make a normal approach with a right turn 180 degrees into the wind. 3. In May 2022, loss of power on takeoff at 10 meters - landing at the end of the runway. 4. In May 2023, loss of power on takeoff immediately after takeoff - landing on the rest of the runway. All reasons for the failure on the AE 50 R wankel are electronics. Failures of sensors and electronic engine control system. I had a good experience of acting in an emergency situation. 5. Due to previous experience, I never trust the motor. I constantly practice turns close to the terrain in the mountains and often make orbital landings. Therefore, I knew what I was going to turn into the wind. The plane wasn't a problem, but it distracted me from flipping the toggle switch to cleaning the engine. On the DG 500 M it's easy. One move, everything is automatic. I felt the resistance of the engine outside at a 270-degree turn. In such a wind (12-15 m/s) near the ground I use 130 km/h. The intensity of the decline came as a surprise even to me. And now I understand why - my main experience was at ASG 32 Mi, and there the engine remains in the fuselage. Outside, only the propeller and radiator. I reduced the roll and the intensity of the turn. I planned to go as low as possible at high speed so as not to fall into the wind gradient, but the windsock prevented. I was already parachuting from 2 meters high, losing speed in the surface wind gradient. This landing is at the limit of my abilities, I would not recommend repeating it. The fields ahead are difficult, with wires and tall grass. But for less flying experience, this would be the only right choice. PS I apologize for not native English :)

that last one was a brilliant example of understanding how his glider flies and the energy it can retain while manouvring

Hi Tim! Regarding to the DG 500. The damages are not so huge - only wheel on the wing tip and engine of course. Glider's tail is not damaged. And one more thing - there are an airplane was landing at that moment.

Having survived the dreaded stall spin I can relate how fast things happen when close to the ground. Impacted trees which absorbed most of the energy or I would not be writing this today.

I am an A-320 airline pilot just starting glider training again (after a 30 year break). Thank you so much for all of your great videos, they each contain a wealth of incredible information and insight for me - especially your 'Instructor Reacts' series. I highly apprechiate your calm and professional way of explaining how to fly gliders safely! You're doing an awesome job, THANKS!

I like the touch down next to the windsock across the runway into the wind. Pretty amazing. 5:27

When I was learning to glide, my instructor kept drilling into me: You and fly low, and you can fly slow, but never fly low AND slow!

How dare you release a video just as I attempt to go to sleep

A drop of prevention is better than a litre of medicine. So these videos are veru usefull to all of us: glider pilots, does not really matter if with 300 or 3000 hours flown. Because, as we say in Slovakia: the luck is on the side of prepared ones. Keep up the good work man!)

Never too much warning about these dangers! Thanks for sharing!

Love you're videos. I basically grew up on glider strips, as my dad has flown gliders for over 30 years. Coincidentally, his initials were PC. The last glider he owned, a Weihe 50 from 1953, now is on display in the Wasserkuppe Glider Museum in Germany. Seeing your videos brings about a lot of memories.

Only note about trying to retract engine. Such attempts commonly ends into fatal crashes, also from much higher altitudes, pilot distraction at such attempts is huge and they mostly losess control. So in my opinion only solution was to land as was performed in video, forget about sorting engine. Thanks for your work.

I thought it was a nice gesture to us viewers that he landed right next to the windsock.

Hi Tim, I always enjoy listening to your commentary. A few remarks on the second video. I flew that day from a nearby field. The wind was at least 20 kts from 320 with strong turbulence and wind sheer. At about the height Igor's glider dropped mine dropped that day too and I was going 120kmh. Keeping the wings level on final that day was quite difficult too. I spoke to Igor about the landing. He said that on short he did loose a lot of speed quickly... likely a combination of the windmilling prop and a strong head wind component. At Serre there are not many good possibilities strait ahead or 15-30 degrees to the right or left from the point Igor's engine failed. All of the good fields are below the airfield and parallel to it. I suppose Igor could have landed with a howling tail wind with that big airbrake sticking out, but I guess he thought he had enough altitude for a full circuit. Anyway, I'm glad he made it back OK. Igor and I had a mutual friend who died with his 10 year old son last year after an engine or belt failure on takeoff out of Albertville.

I have experience same kind of engineer failure in Arcus M, retract partially the engine to approx 45 degrees helps a lot in the gliding back increasing your positivities. In my case ends in a normal landing.

I guess Igor wanted to shorten the runway so he slammed the plane on the ground as soon as he could. Great self control in a very sticky situation. Still landed against the wind. Great job.

Having flown with Igor here are a couple of comments. 1. First thing he asks is if the fuel valve is open. It's in the front seat, Igor is in the back. I'm going to be the first to admit there was one flight where I myself forgot to open the fuel. He doesn't have that control in the back seat. 2. I seem to recall the engine retraction is also done from the front seat, but the throttle is available from both seats. I might be wrong about this, it now has been a few months, but it's a switch on the right under a cover. Not knowing the skill level of the front seater and the familiarity with the controls it may have been an unwelcome distraction to try and deal with the engine, also note how the prop didn't get locked in a retractable position. 3. This looks intense, but he knew exactly what he was doing. There are other landing options parallel to the field, but they're not ideal, albeit about 40' lower than the field. 4. there were other airplanes around he had to deal with. You can see one at the end of the runway just as he touches down. Overall, if I was to get this experience - this is the pilot I'd want in the back seat. 5. if the engine was partially retracted I'm pretty sure this landing would cause significant airframe damage when the retraction mechanism would collapse and the prop would impact the fuselage. All in all, I believe this is as good as anyone could have handled this landing.

This is the only video that I know of where a glide instructor tells you how to handle an engine-out-event.

For the second video there's a new one out today. So the only damage is the wheel on the wing and some minor damage to the wing itself, around which they did 180 degree turn on the ground. Also the another difficulty factor there was that they took off right before the plane was going to land there (you can see it rolling after the landing).

Though it’s a little hard to tell exactly (due to the offset camera angle), it looks like he was skidding the turn as the yaw string was quite a bit over on the inside of the turn. This is a perfect example of why it’s important to keep turn coordinated - and especially avoid skidding turns! Using opposite stick in this situation also tends to expedite the spin entry as it increases the angle of attack on the stalled wing (can't see this in the edited video, but the pilot states he used opposite aileron) In regards to the stall speed. In my 1-36 manual stall speed is published as 35 mph at 0° bank and 42 mph at 45°. Remember stall (and minimum sink speed) increase almost 20° in a 1.4G turn. (45° bank). It looks like he was below that. Minimum sink speed for a 1-36 at 45° bank is 50 mph. That close to terrain an extra margin of speed must be maintained to account for turbulence and no extra altitude for recovery.

This guy appears to be flying left-handed low down in turbulent weather behind a ridge whilst holding/playing with his phone with his right hand. He initiated a turn at low speed, and when the nose drops, he pulls back on the stick.. I hope he's learnt from the experience.

Hi Tim, I think I have to comment here too. First spin: we teach flying on a SF34 and I offer my students spin taining as it is a insentive - if they manage in thermals 1000m they can have either spin with one or two circles or some loops. And most of them ask me to do spins if they reach 1000m above ground. One circle give 150 to 200 m hight lost. Having a spin near a ridge can kill you and you need to know were to end so that you do not fly into the mountain. Unintendet spins at low attitude (

That first scenario,the stall, I thought it was some kind of flight simulator game. Something about the interior of the glider.

Just discovered your series - nice explanations. As someone who has toyed with the idea of taking up soaring as one the “safer” airborne pastimes I was a bit sobered at the stats you’ve related when adjusted for deaths per airborne hour.

Good videos Tim. My thoughts on the first a grossly over ruddered turn into the ridge at lowish height was very dangerous. The DG engine failure may have worked better with an initial right turn downwind . We always taught initial turn after launch failure down wind to open up your field landing options. On the point of engine stowage at low altitudes is leave well alone and concentrate on the flying.

Thank you!

Thank you, monsieur! A great video like every time!

if you have some mental reserves always retract the engine. In the ventus self lauch you can always retract it until it disappears in the back mirror without hitting the engine doors. Leaves you with 1/3 of the drag.

The Igor's glider was not damaged. Just the wing wheel was partially dislodged. Per Igor's comments (in his video in Russian) the engine failure was due to apparent compression ring failure which created mechanical blockage.

In PJ Marks comments here about his "death spiral" video he says that his glider stalls at 32mph and he was flying faster than that when he was rolled towards the ridge by rotor and entered a spin (with the ASI showing about 40mph). Being rolled uncontrollably towards a ridge by a thermal or rotor gust under the other wing, with or without a spin, is the all too frequent cause of fatalities in mountain soaring. I hope that the pilot learns that was not flying nearly fast enough to retain control in gusts so close to the ridge and also that, irrespective of whether the turn was initiated intentionally or not, the stalling speed in a turn is higher than in straight flight.

Hi Tim, please don't delete this video if asked. It is still educational.

Great job with the videos, Tim. I’m a microlight pilot with only 400 hrs and so far 1 engine out landing (good landing, no damage). Luckily, it’s quite hard to spin an XAir F, but certainly not impossible! Think I’ll go brush up on my Spin Response Protocol. Keep up the good work!

That spin video looks photo shopped. The major thing is you see a whole bunch of roll input which is the dead last thing you do. I'm very much questioning this one.

great video as always ☺️

What's wrong with the paved runway right in front of him? Why not accept a downwind landing if it's controlled, on a great surface, with a long runway available?

In the second vid turning to the right might have been a better option to reduce the turn onto final, also wind gradient looked to play a large role in the energy lose close to the ground. Very difficult situation to make all the right decisions in such a short space of time, retrospect is a wonderful thing. Well done.

tbh the probably better solution for the DG500 would've been to land downwind into the lane where they probably have their winch cable usually laid out. but in hindsight and in your officechair one's always smarter than in that situation

I remember as a seventeen year old Air Cadet being taught to recognise a stall turn and a spin, get the recovery between the two mixed up and the action made the situation worse.

0:30 The yaw string is pointing left into the spin: the turn is not coordinated: he is skidding the turn with too much rudder. That is the problem. Not enough aileron input. The graph of speed versus time in the lower left is very interesting and informative!

Yep, think I need to go and pratice stalling and spiral dive receovery. 👍

the left wing touched down before the main gear... very windy weather conditions

as always, love the vids. Is there any chance you would do a refresher video on comparing electric vs gas gliders touching on both sustainer and full motor gliders? Your current one feels a bit old and outdated, and I would love to see a cost, weight, and reliability comparison.

About 10 years ago, two instructors in our partner club died while trying to emergency land a Duo Discus. They winch launched and immediately tried to start the engine. It wouldn´t start and therefore they came down quickly. I think they did not have a good altitude to start with an maybe decided too late to land. They landed in a corn field next to the airfield. The glider broke in half and both died. They were very experienced instructors and it send some shockwaves to the community.

What is the normal spin recovery in a glider? Powered it’s PARE. Power off, ailerons neutral, rudder in opposite direction, use elevator to unstall the wing. After that apply power as needed.

and you thought all those yaw strings/tell-tales/tell-tails were going to be a bit of a joke :) So much useful B-roll/teaching examples

I was towed over a rock ridge, near St-Auban. After releasing the tow, I was willing to put the gear up, but I wisely wait to be at a safe heigth over the rocks. The gear command was difficult to handle, and because of the required strength, i lost attention to the attitude of the glider and on the pressure of my rigth foot on the pedal. Thus the glider goes in a severe spin. And because of the safety heigth I kept I was able to recover.

Note the low level crosswind blowing him to the right causing the 'skid illusion' in the finals turn at 03:59. Easy to incorrectly put your foot on the rudder in response. Alternatives - right hand circuit downwind to get space for a base/finals turn then land across the field - it looks wide enough in that wind. Spin guy pulled out right on his track to the ridge and home ? I think he might have a lot of aerobatics time up, and has flown spins as parts of an aeros sequence card 😃 Lots of them.

Hardest thing about spin is pilots not realizing they are in a spin. And that other spiral is even more dangerous. By the time pilots notice this, it can be too late. That's what I was taught, decades ago.

The first seemed fake. He was rolling while pointing straight down, not a flat spin. Correct me if I'm wrong but there is no mode of flight for a glider that would result in a straight roll with control inputs. On the second one he drifted a lot. A glider is not a drift car. I'm guessing he was a bit too slow on touch down so he stalled down and made it hard to control.

@5:02 its ironic you would point out that he "needed more of a flare" because as soon as youre finished saying that at 5:10 it is completely evident that he was flaring as the tail hit the ground first causing the not so gentle body roll. I dont know what your experience level is but thia guy lost as engine at what seems like no more than 200 feet above ground.

Hello Can you maybe create a video which describes how to Center a thermal and how to get the most out of the thermal?

I flew 10 years in Romania on gliders (IS28B2 and IS29D2). Practising getting out of the spin is mandatory once a year, before the first solo. Normally one pilot must be able to get it out after 1/4 of a turn. If you let it more (unless instructed) you would have to retake it. Nose stall and spin stall.

I’m surprised the pilot didn’t retract the engine at least 3/4 of the way. It makes a massive difference to the glide angle and it’s something we have practised in our own 2 seat motor glider.

It appears on the spin video that the turn contrôle coordination was bad : glider is skidding, too much rudder input, as the wool dread on the canopy moins inside the turn shows. This is a all dangerous situation. More flight controls coordination training in turns is necessary.

Igor's glider from second video is intact after landing, just engine is going to be replaced with a spare one.

Looking at the windsock in that second video, perhaps outlanding in that green field on the left could have been an option ? It's lower than the airfield so he'd have had more height and he would have been roughly into wind as well. Seems like trying to turn back and then turn back into wind ended up costing too much height, he was barely flying at the end.

I couldn't stomach how 'spin training' was limited to spin entries only. Get high and spin the damn glider, many rotations, both directions, over and over. Get comfortable with it so you subconsciously know it. Get great at precise recovery anywhere in the event. Well, what I did. BTW doing this in wave conditions help speed this learning up dramatically.

At 05:50, why not land straight ahead on the level field instead of doing the dangerous low-level turn. I don't know the altitude, but it looks like even with the strong tailwind that would be doable with the airbrakes.

On the emergency landing video, on his final turn, he looks like he is slipping/crabbing sideways a lot, so his left wing is on the inside and slow; plus his left aileron is deflected down more than the right. Is that not a recipe for disaster? i remember my instructor responded most..._intently_ whenever there was any sideslip on finals, and left me in no doubt that I should never allow it except in crosswinds, but he is landing into wind. have I missed something here?

I was waiting to be winch launched when someone crashed behind/beside me. They were too low to land back at the launch point and should have landed on a cross wind runway or even the infield of our huge three runway airfield. Instead they tried to make to the down wind end of the active runway, made a low turn almost overhead and stalled/spun from about 20 feet. Fortunately pilot and passenger survived but glider was badly damaged.

I think it must be 80pc of all GA in the uk not just gliding and powered aircraft are much more difficult to recover. At that altitude my Robin would have no chance of recovery and powered pilots won't instinctively use the rudder or manage their airspeed correctly or quick enough.

35 seconds from prop stop to touchdown. Pilot done good. Would the retact operate with the prop horizontal?

Why did the dg500 Do the last turn at low altitude With tailwind ? Wouldnt a turn to the right into the Wind be safer?

The second looks to me like a textbook example of a panic 'gotta get back to the field' reaction after engine out ... he does no less than 2 low altitude relatively steep bank 180° turns, with the engine extended acting as a full-on airbrake ... hat off to his skill level for having pulled it off, but I can't call that safe by any standard. In fact, only a few years ago a member of our club sadly got killed in this exact scenario when trying to get back to the field after an engine failure and stall-spinning into the ground ...

1st video you can see he holds the stick back all the way into the stall, and only recovers on pushing it forward. This is why simulator time is a life saver, you need to train your muscles to do the opposite of what your brain wants. Train stalls and spins all day long!

thanks for bringing awareness on sailplane safety, 80% accidents because no spin control practice and not even ejector parachute

Seems like he extended his downwind much further than needed and almost didnt make the final turn. Seemed to have a lot of runway in front of him when je stopped

2 full turns plus that cockpit commentary, intentional IMO. The owner of a soaring club put their glider into a spin on downwind and turned back control to me once the wing fully dropped. He knew it was recoverable and was testing me. Just like this pilot knew it was recoverable and did this for attention.

👍 AWESOME. 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺😁😁😁

Could Powered gliders be improved by an auto retraction feature, whereby, if the engine fails, it is automatically retracted into the hull

IMO, the lesson from the first video - ATTITUDE IS NOT A SYMPTOM OF AN APPROACHING SPIN. Spins that kill people depart from either a normal or nose-low attitude, over-ruddered turn. And the video is classic - starts with a stable 63mph (55kt) attitude, well above the unaccelerated stall speed, and never comes back up to that attitude. String goes across as he over-rudders at the start of the turn, tries to correct the attitude with elevator and aileron, boom. The stick would have been well left of centre as it departed too, trying to pick the wing up. I really like to emphasise these two symptoms and get every Bloggs to see it happen, especially if they display mishandling traits. Even an ASK-21 will go unless you've got a big fella in the front.

Second one, plenty of landable fields straight ahead, don't understand why he turns and risks stall/spinning, especially with that much wind.

Is it Serres airfield in southern France ?

First video, the pilot seems to be flying left handed and holding a phone in the right hand? You mention the main cause of departing into a spin but didn't pick up on this?

Not many people are talking about the direction of the turn... Unless there was a landable area to the left, I would have turned downwind at that height. Would love to hear the pre-flight briefing. 20/20 hindsight though, and it was a good outcome.

DUDE, I don't hear his Vario-TES in the first clip. What the heck?

Surely in the DG landing he stalled it. Look at the way the wings relax from their loaded state as he is still in the air

hi, to the second video: we call this "trying to fly around the T". The T is marking approach and final runway, as well as the Threshold. Major failure: try flying past the T. The better way would have been to land the opposite direction "Umkehrkurve", from where you departed. Aft Eng Failure right away, 30°, gaining some distance, turning back a left 220° turn, and it's done. That would have been safer. Other opportunity: try an Oval, aiming point is half the runway. NEVER try flying to the end of the runway. Greeting from an FI.

I wouldn't have pulled out of that spin so rashly. Perfect way to re-stall it. Gentle pull out but firm, don't yank it and dont dynamic stall it again.

If Igor was planning to do a shortend 360 circuit, then he should have turned right into the wind... Turning towards the wind is the right choise if you want to land against your take of direction. As the wind was nearly cross for take of the landing direction would not have made a big difference here. The runway and final approach looked all free, so I can't see why he didn't land straight on the airfield after the 180 towards the wind... and did this risky other 180 with the wind in his tail... This is the classy situation to get blown over the field, forced into a steep turn, and get into stall over that. Initial reaction was good, but choice for landing direction was wrong from my perspective.

Concur, and no one would deliberately jump out of a Taylorcraft over the western US just for youtube likes. My point is that people can and will do anything anymore for online glory.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that when he flew his circuit to the right, his last turn would be much safer, becouse then he doesn’t have to make a 270 degree turn low to the ground downwind. Flying low downwind makes you think you go fast, but it’s the airspeed that matters. Great save Anyway!

Re second video. I have flown a Janus CM out of Serres (where this was) and the only option in this case was straight ahead into one of several good flat fields which are quite a bit lower than the airfield. He was very lucky, not skilled, to get away with what he chose to do. Getbackitis.

In the second video It looks to me like he had a tail strike on landing causing a bit of a pancake.

So the DEI (engine instrument) of the 500M isn't very nice in a stress situation. To retract you need to turn off ignition (really small switch that you need to pull to switch) and then press and hold the starter on the throttle to allign the prop and wait. The total sequence costs at least 20 seconds, but that is time lost focussing on landing... Unless the ballast in the back seat can handle it, I would leave the engine out. I think he stayed waaaaay to close to the runway during downwind. This pushed him far away from the centerline on the final turn made what was left of final a bit sketchy. In the end I think the better option would not have been the airfield, but the fields directly in front of him. They seem good enough and he would have been able to land directly into the wind, reducing ground speed and cross wind problems...

I dunno looks like he got into a rotor to me, I think he was very lucky to pull out

Doesn´t have to do anything with the spinning in particular, but: Ain`t it common practice anymore to not turn into the ridge when turning arround? Going close to the ridge and then turn arround away from the ridge wouldn`t have made it neccessary to turn that steep and stall friendly to begin with.

Hm... Flying with his left hand and looking at his cell phone. It appears his cell phone is giving him some sort of glider performance telemetry, perhaps he was looking at his FLARM ??? Note to pilot ... Buy a RAM mount for the cell phone.

If you don't have enough height, and with a such big drag it would be more reasonable to land it down the wind. And according to the wind sock , it wasn't a great tail wind component.

Recovery was marginal but reasonably well executed except for the wing low finals and - it seems - no consideration of wind gradient.

That first pilot was about the sloppiest and most ham fisted pilot I’ve ever seen. Someone needs to teach him what smooth control inputs are and what coordinated flight is all about. Also, he needs to learn that when he is flying he needs to stay off his cell phone while turning into a ridge to pick up lift at low altitudes.

In the spin video, from the yaw string it looks like a grossly over-ruddered turn, as the string is displaced almost fully to the right even before commencement of the spin. Apart from keeping good speed at critical altitudes, and in general, it is better to UNDER-rudder a turn than over-rudder, especially around the circuit and at low airspeeds. I agree with you in that this almost looks like a deliberate attempt to spin which is very odd considering the low altitude.

What's the Morse code signalling in Igor's video?

1st video he seems to be flying left handed and holding mobile in right.

did you miss the fact the Death Spiral guy also posted another video being "sucked" into cloud? Trevor Jacob of gliding?

A couple thoughts on the second video, from a guy who regularly self launches a DG500MB and has had some failures of various sorts: In any winged craft: if something happens you don't like (such as losing control or an engine quits): UNLOAD and push push push for control! Igor took control and did exactly this. On the turn to final he tried to gain some speed but the drag is just far too high with the engine out. A self-launching glider still glides okay, but its deceptive at low speed and normal pitch! If you push for more airspeed: all you will get is a bunch more descent and not a lot of speed! Put your spoilers out at 45kts and note your new sink rate, holding 45kts. Not a big deal. Now try to accelerate to 85kts. I bet you will stop the demonstration before reaching 85kts. The same principle applies to the engine, propeller, and pylon all hanging out in the wind. And speaking of the propeller, engine and pylon all hanging out in the wind: its all conveniently blocking smooth air flow to your rudder and elevator! And as the prop windmills, the feel will change! It's crazy but its happening as the prop turns its compression stroke positions. What's worse? The propeller thrust line is high, like a Lake Renegade seaplane. When the engine fails: you pitch up AND lose elevator and rudder authority by a notable amount. Be ready to PUSH for airspeed. It'll take a big push to overcome the nose up + the lost thrust. When the engine fails: you pitch up AND lose elevator and rudder authority by a notable amount. Be ready to PUSH for airspeed. It'll take a big push to overcome the nose up + the lost thrust. - I think we should all practice some stalls etc with the engine extended and off. No spins, obviously. It shouldn't spin easily, given the forward CG with it extended, however, it's possible this is cancelled by the drag/thrust vector being so high. I don't know. DRIFT DOWNWIND. When you takeoff in a crosswind: let the crosswind carry you downwind several hundred feet. If you lose the engine: you can turn into the wind for a 180° landing opposite of your takeoff (a rope break like maneuver). If you're too high to land downwind or if wind is too strong: from the position where the failure occurred, is it possible to have flown a right hand, downwind, pattern? If so: the turn to "final" would've been into the wind, not with a horrendous tail wind, while also dealing with "wind gradient" on top of that. The key to a safe emergency landing is making a base leg that is into the wind! The scenario that Igor found himself in is literally the worst place to have a failure, and in conditions that left him with no safe outlanding options into the wind. Finally: the DG500 retraction method is simple - ignition off. Once the engine reaches the alignment position it will engage the brake and retract. That really could have helped with the turn to final and touch down. At triangle speed the sink goes up substantially and any attempt to gain speed at low altitude will only result in a high sink rate and not a lot of speed gained. That said - he really had his hands full and I don't fault him one bit. Rule number one: NEVER STOP FLYING THE PLANE. If even flipping that switch distracts you: forget it and STAY IN CONTROL! At the end of the day: a wrecked glider sucks, but your own dead body is worse.

To those commenting on which way Igor turned here's my thoughts. It could possibly be to do with the airport itself (Serres I believe?). I think the terrain rises, relative to the airfield height, to the right of the glider at the point where the engine failure occurred. Serres is also on top of a plateau and if Igor turned right he'd increase the chance of flying over the lee side of the airfield with that wind strength I'd assume you'd hit some harsh curl-over if this happened. Turning left you'd hopefully receive a little dynamic lift from the small ridge that runs along the airfield perimeter I'd assume?. If it did go wrong turning to the left and the final turn unable to be made Igor could have turned right to land in one of the fields below the airfield. Had he turned right I think there would be no other options available to him and it would be a single option plan. I've only flown out of Serres on a week long club expedition so my knowledge isn't the best but thought I'd share what I recall and maybe someone that knows Serres may correct any detail I've not quite got right.

First one was very wierd.. Anyone with a bit of experience flying gliders would know that a steep bank angle going that slow over terrain is an absolute no go.. To me it looks like he wanted to do it.. He got into a steep bank and just kept pushing it harder and harder.. I cant think of any reason you would do this other than intentional..

Real or not? I wouldn't have believed a guy would deliberately crash a plane in California for views on RU-vid, but... It worries me now what people will do.

It was a one turn spin, not fully developed