fatality in SPI

Originally Posted by RickI

Thanks for the input Tom, glad you reacted well and quickly. I've been trying to get stories like this for some months. Suspicions about problems absent actual incident details don't go very far. What would you guess the wind speed was and what type and size kite were you using? What other sort of kites have you seen doing this? That is with wingtip tangles. You can tangle a bar on any kite going to my knowledge. Then again, maybe some bar designs are more prone than others?

9m 2008 waroo, 25-30 knots (confirmed by ikite). My only experience with bridle tangles has been on 06,07, and 08 waroos. I've experienced the looping kite via tangled bar many times on both C kites (even with a 5th line) and bow kites. So there are many reasons a kite can go into the death spiral and it is not restricted to modern bridled kites. Any kite can do it, but bridles make it more likely.

We are fortunate these days to be aware of it and have QR's on our leashes. These days I do not hesitate to ditch the kite... not good I know but we don't have many options do we.