VSO 10 ends in a garden hedge after the pilot pulls up from a fast field landing

Final glide home to Soběslav into low sun and haze: the pilot of a VSO 10 could not see past a wood, picked a mown meadow from about 100 m AGL and arrived over it at 130 km/h; the touchdown came a third of the way in, and the landing he broke off on the ground ended with the glider in a hedge by a house, the pilot lightly injured and the airframe destroyed. The approach never stabilised, the speed building and the sink reaching 6 m/s. On the ground the pilot closed the airbrakes and pulled up to clear a tree by the road; the glider rose to about 10 m AGL, lost speed and dropped onto the grass in front of the house.

1. Final glide from the last turn: The pilot left the Pelhřimov turnpoint, where thunderstorms were building, at about 2,100 m MSL for the glide home to Soběslav. The recorder shows the second half of the leg as a steady descent.
2. Low sun and haze ahead: The last kilometres were flown into the sun through haze. Near Dvorce, 3 to 4 km short of the airfield, the pilot could not see beyond a wood that lay across the track.
3. Field picked at about 100 m: The decision to land out came with about 100 m AGL left above the mown meadow chosen for it. For that height and that direction of approach, the field was small and ringed by obstacles.
4. Approach at 130 km/h: The approach never settled. The flight recorder shows the speed rising to 130 km/h with 6 m/s of sink, and the glider touched the ground about a third of the way into the field.
5. Landing abandoned on the ground: The pilot closed the airbrakes and pulled back to clear a tree by the road, and the glider rose to about 10 m AGL and crossed the road. The speed then fell away and it dropped.
6. Into the hedge of a house: It came down on grass in front of a house and ran into the thuja hedge at the boundary. The pilot was lightly injured and got out with help from the owner; the glider was destroyed.