[imagesource: South African Civil Aviation Authority]

You might recall that freak paragliding accident in Sea Point in July last year, which claimed the life of a Scottish rugby coach Greig Oliver.

The 58-year-old was killed when his tandem glider collided with another paraglider as they were coming down from Signal Hill.

An official Air Accident Investigation report has now revealed how the pilot showed a “total disregard” for his passenger’s safety, putting Oliver through a series of quick dynamic acrobatic turns the canopy was not certified for, per Daily Mail.

The 30-page report investigating the avoidable accident revealed Oliver was put in such a position to make the crash “unsurvivable”.

Oliver, a father of two, was the elite performance officer at the Irish club Munster and was in Cape Town to support his 20-year-old son Jack playing for Ireland at the World Rugby U20 Championship. Oliver and a couple of other rugby parents who had flown out to support their sons had decided on a dare-devil adventure to paraglide off Signal Hill, not knowing there would be a loss of life.

Image: Facebook

Disaster struck as the three paragliders took off from the 350-metre summit of Signal Hill in light three-knot winds, with the former Scotland scrum-half said to be “nervous and tense” in the lead-off.

The 22-year-old pilot’s GoPro camera captured the whole ordeal, revealing how he boasted “It’s going to get crazy!” before taking the Duet Two paraglider through a series of high-speed acrobatic ‘wing overs’ it had never been designed to carry out before it spiralled downwards quickly. Oliver could be heard screaming and shouting “Jesus” as they twisted and turned above the Sea Point promenade. The memory card was confiscated by police for air accident investigators to analyse.

Image: South African Civil Aviation Authority

Moments later, the show-off pilot – assessed to have not been watching where he was going – slammed his paraglider into another paraglider, collapsing the canopy.

“Paraglider1 flight instructor displayed a total disregard for the safe operation of a paraglider and displayed poor airmanship and did not adhere to procedures,” the report said.

The pair plunged 250 metres towards the Atlantic Ocean below as the nylon wing ripped open and several vital rigging lines were severed.

Image: South African Civil Aviation Authority

The report said the instructor deployed the emergency parachute, which inflated before they hit the water. Damningly the report says that when the paraglider impacted the water both the pilot and passenger were still harnessed into their seats but the pilot freed just himself. He left Oliver stricken and trapped in his harness, unable to free himself, swamped with the weight of the chute and rigging as he battled the waves.

“There was no evidence of the instructor retracting the wing or rescuing the student pilot or assisting him to unclip or release his seat safety buckle. The flight instructor unclipped himself from the seat harness and swam to the shore. However the student was caught between the rocks and could not free himself.”

“Additionally he was not in possession of a hook knife that would have enabled him to cut himself free from the suspension lines and wing fabric and he remained trapped.”

As the pilot made his way to safety on Rocklands Beach, Oliver was still trapped among the parachute material, becoming wedged in the rocks. The former coach had been trapped below the water line when he was retrieved by NSRI in the freezing Atlantic waters, buffeted by a heavy swell and 2-metre waves.

Image: South African Civil Aviation Authority

The pair had crash landed 114 metres from shore and the collision took place at 4:24PM in perfect flying conditions, 12 minutes into what should have been a 15-minute joy-ride.

Oliver was lifted onto the rocks and CPR was carried out but it was clear that he was past saving, so he was declared dead at the scene and his body taken away by police.

Image: Facebook

Shockingly, despite the tragedy happening over eight months ago, the South African authorities have been unable to provide the post-mortem or toxicology results on Oliver. The investigation has thus had to conclude that Oliver was fatally injured during the accident sequence.

[source:dailymail]