Cross Fell glider crash caused by tail damage

The glider nose-dived into the side of the highest mountain in the Pennines

A glider crash in which a teenage pilot was seriously injured was caused by "flutter" which damaged the tail section, an investigation has found.

The aircraft took off from Edensoaring gliding club, in Cumbria and crashed on Cross Fell on 7 August 2019.

Olly Rastrick, then aged 15 and from Southampton, suffered broken bones and spent days in an induced coma.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said it crashed as a result of a structural failure of the tail section.

"Divergent flutter" caused the tail section to break off in the air

Mr Rastrick, who was part of a private group visiting the gliding club near Penrith, was flying low at maximum operating speed behind the ridge at Cross Fell in the Pennines in an area where turbulence might be encountered.

The tail section of the glider began to oscillate rapidly before breaking away.

The craft - an SB-5E - pitched nose down and broke up on the ground.

Mr Rastrick was airlifted to hospital suffering from a broken pelvis, femur, ankle and ribs.

On waking from his coma, the teenage pilot was reported to be making plans for his next flight.

The teenage pilot had spent two years with gliding associations before the crash

The AAIB said in its report: "The cause of the failure was flutter (an oscillation of a structure under the interaction of aerodynamic and aeroelastic forces) which was driven by the ruddervators.

"It was likely to have occurred when the glider was flying between the rough air speed limit and the maximum operating speed.

"Since then a number of safety actions have been taken to improve the supervision of young glider pilots, maintenance of training records and the introduction of a national syllabus for hill soaring (ridge flying)."