A veteran hang-glider pilot died Saturday morning shortly after falling 150 to 200 feet when his glider collapsed during an aerobatic maneuver above the gliders' south launch site.
Joseph D. Gillies, 34, Lindon, was maneuvering above the top of the launch site when his glider stalled, pushing him into the frame of the glider and collapsing a strut that stretches from wing tip to wing tip. He tried to push himself away from the glider and was deploying a parachute when the craft's wings folded around him and tumbled to the ground, said Kerry Evans, the investigating deputy with the Utah County Sheriff's Department.The sheriff's office was notified of the accident just after 9:30 a.m.
A friend of Gillies' who is known by his friends as Jonzy was about to launch when he heard a loud snap and thought perhaps something on his own glider had broken. Jonzy, an emergency medical technician, said he backed away from the launch site and turned around to see Gillies behind him on the ground. "I ran to my truck and got my medical kit. When I first got to him, he still had a pulse."
A nurse who was flying a model airplane nearby and several others helped administer first aid until ambulances and a medical helicopter arrived. The helicopter flew Gillies to American Fork Hospital, where officials confirmed he was dead on arrival.
Jonzy said Gillies was rated as a hang-4 pilot, which is the second highest certification offered through the U.S. Hang Gliding Association, and had been flying at the Point of the Mountain with the Utah Hang Gliding Association for about 16 years.
"He was a very well-liked man. We're all like a family out here, and he was a leader of the family," said club secretary Terry Hawkins. "He's got a family of about 60 pilots who are going to miss him a lot."