![\"Glider](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/30b8e4385a3ea6094f7dcb03cc1749ed.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA fatal glider crash in Tasmania’s midlands on Sunday occurred during the launch phase when the glider was being towed airborne by a powered aircraft.<\/p>\n
A woman in her 50s died at the scene and a man in his 60s was airlifted to the Royal Hobart Hospital in a serious condition after the crash at the private Tunbridge Airfield just before 2pm.<\/p>\n
The woman was participating as a “flight student” in a Soaring Club of Tasmania “air experience”, and the man was the instructor, flying in a Twin Astir two-seat glider used for flight training.<\/p>\n
The club sells “air experience” vouchers for an instructor to take the voucher holder up for a 20-minute flight above central Tasmania.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A glider being towed by aircraft during ‘launch’ phase, pictured during a non-related incident. (Soaring Tasmania)<\/p>\n
Passengers get moments they “can fly the aircraft under the guidance of an instructor”, outside of landing and take-off.<\/p>\n
The glider had already completed one flight that day.<\/p>\n
A larger group of people were at the airfield at the time, including the woman’s husband.<\/p>\n
Soaring Club members provided immediate assistance before emergency services arrived.<\/p>\n
Accident occurred during tow launch<\/p>\n
In a statement, Gliding Australia said it extends its condolences to family and friends of those involved.<\/p>\n
“The accident occurred during the launch phase while the glider was being towed by the club’s Eurofox towplane,” the statement reads.<\/p>\n
“Gliding Australia will cooperate fully with Tasmanian Police as investigations continue.<\/p>\n
“The investigation will examine operational, technical, and airworthiness factors, including evidence collection and data analysis.”<\/p>\n
Towing by a powered aircraft is a common method of launch, during which the glider is attached via a towrope and towing hooks.<\/p>\n
The towrope is typically released when the glider reaches desired position and altitude.<\/p>\n
The crash was reported to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), but the ATSB does not generally investigate glider incidents.<\/p>\n
The initial investigation will be carried out by Tasmania Police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fatal glider crash in Tasmania’s midlands on Sunday occurred during the launch phase when the glider was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,1154,1300,203400,44,1160,30024,202658,203401],"class_list":["post-377361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crash","tag-death","tag-glider","tag-news","tag-pilot","tag-student","tag-tunbridge","tag-twin-astir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}