Bill Soderquist
Structural Failure and Reserve Deployment
Incident Date: Saturday 6/5/10. sometime after 5 PM
Posting on 6/6/10, updated 6/7/10

See also postings on the CSS discussion forum at: http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/forum/20100606/3342
& Photos at [Photos]

Bill Soderquist's aerobatic display followed Tom Mayer's tragic aerobatic sequence by about 5 minutes.

Bill experienced a structural failure of his hang glider.  Early reports from the CSS and SCPA forums indicate that one of Bill's side wires likely failed during high wing loading entering a loop, resulting in the keel and control bar components ripping from the sail and detaching from the rest of the airframe. This resulted in Bill free falling during his reserve deployment until he was abruptly decelerated by the canopy opening.  Bill's impact with the ground was reportedly not particularly hard.

Unfortunately, Bill sustained rib damage during the sharp canopy opening shock and was airlifted from the crash site to a local hospital.  There were also non-clarified contusion injuries.  His helmet came off early in the sequence, reportedly because his strap was not adequately secure.  Further postings on the CSS discussion forum indicate Bill is in reasonably good condition but in a fair amount of pain from the ribs.  He will likely remain in the hospital for several days.

Posting by "NMERider" on the SCPA discussion forum Sun Jun 06, 2010 1:37 am:
Copied from http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1896

5 minutes after Tom's impact, Bill Soderquist was initiating a loop on his LiteSpeed when it folded up and the keel ripped out along with the control bar. Bill went into freefall for about 200' and deployed his reserve. His internally connected bridle wrapped around Bill's rib cage and the powerful opening shock broke several of Bill's ribs. I also heard that his skull was fractured at his eye socket. He was airlifted out to Loma Linda medical center.

Posting by Linda Dunn (aka "A Girl") on the CSS discussion forum Sun, 2010-06-06 10:23
Copied from: http://www.crestlinesoaring.org/forum/20100606/3342

Bill is looking great despite 4 broken ribs and knarly bruises along his right side and arm. He said injuries were from the deployment as the bridle slammed his side and said the landing felt soft. He said he may go home today.

Posting by NMERider » Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:02 pm
Copied from: http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1896&p=5758#p5758

I spoke with Doggone Bill this morning and he indicated that he'd be in the hospital for another day or two for observation. He said there was fluid in his lungs and that he sustained 4 broken ribs but his face and skull were fine. Bill neglected to secure the buckle on his helmet which explains why it fell off his head in flight. Bill's mood was upbeat and his wife Marilyn was there along with Mike [Harper]. He hardly had any sleep due to the pain in his ribs and was connected to a lot of tubes an wires. He had been doing a limited amount of standing an walking. I didn't bother to ask about the alleged side wire failure just outboard the Nico-press sleeve. Kraig Coomber can handle that job. Bill indicated that he saw Tom's glider initially fold up but since the white X had not been laid out he assumed that it ended without incident and there would not be a medivac landing to avoid. Otherwise he would have aborted his routine and just landed ASAP.

I thanked Bill for the suggestion that I check my reserve handle multiple times with each hand while I glide out to do my routine and complimented him on getting his deployment bag in his hand before his wings has completely folded. It was durig this part of the conversation that Bill said he was under the impression that Tom was flying without any reserve because Tom stated as much on launch as Bill was advising me. I assured Bill that this was not the case. My guess is that this was just Tom being funny. He was pretty good at putting me on and I often fell for it or it got a good rise out of me.