Further to a thread on the incident being started on the forum, Athol Terence, who witnessed the accident and had some additional insights made these comments.
Please allow me to stop all the speculation. I have just flown back from Secunda and this is my account of what happened. I was right in front of the tower directly opposite the position where Glen crashed no more than 300 metres away.
Firstly Glen called Mayday at least three times and he was not inverted at the time. The Red Bull Extra 330 appeared to flutter once at about 500 feet he caught it then at about 200 feet this happened again he caught it. Then he hit the ground absolutely flat as you can see in the attached pictures. I believe the cable or push rod to the elevator may have broken, because Glen knew he had a problem and he had definitely fully recovered from his inverted spin when things went wrong. The Extra 330 (a new aircraft) slid for some meters before impacting the Secunda boundary fence which stopped it altogether.
Then I witnessed the most appalling service I have ever seen. The Extra 330 did not catch fire for at least 3 minutes - perhaps 3.5 minutes. I could have run across the runway and got to him before the fire started. The fire truck arrived nearly five minutes later when the fire had started engulfing the aircraft. The sloppy firemen got off the fire truck like they were having a walk in the park and then sprayed the burning plane with water! Where was the foam? It was not until the paramedics arrived and some of the display pilots that the fire men started using foam. Where the f%#@K is the training? Why only one fire truck? The other truck was a water bowzer and did not have fire fighting equipment.
It was one of the Harvard pilots that eventually got Glen out of the plane. They had no idea of how to loosen the belts. Again where is the training? Andre Coetzee flew Glenn to the local Medi Clinic and the rest is history.
On Tuesday I spent the afternoon with Glen at his hangar undertaking an article on his life for the December edition of AP. We chatted and laughed at the times of our lives in aviation. I have known Glen pretty well for 30 years and this is devastating - such a brilliant pilot.
I have just heard that Glen is alive in ICU at the Sunninghill Hospital. Stength to Captain Glen Dell and his family.
Warning some of these pictures are rather graphic.
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