Glider crashes into houses in Chiba, killing two on board

These guys are a bit old for this type of sport. Maybe a heart attack.

These guys are a bit old for this type of sport. Maybe a heart attack.

Good point. I mean, we cannot exclude that possibility.

On board is one word. But, as a former hang-glider instructor who survived a crash into a cliff, I'll with those gentlemen well. They died having fun. My only hope is that no one in the house they hit was injured. Insurance will take care of the rest.

glad no one on the ground was injured or killed. what was this guy doing flying near a residential area anyways?

On board is one word.

It's one word as a modifier according to the AP stylebook. But I think two words is the correct usage here.

But that's beside the point, of course. I'm sorry to hear about this tragedy. May those men rest in peace.

glad no one on the ground was injured or killed. what was this guy doing flying near a residential area anyways?

This isn't so far from home, these homes are very close to the Tonegawa which to the south has farmland, then houses start which is where this happened, to the north(Ibaraki) of the Tonegawa there is a lot more farmland & a small airport where these glider type aircraft & planes like Cessna's come & go.

I see these aircraft a lot when driving along the river, gliders are usually quite high & I have NEVER seen them flying over residential areas so they likely had some mechanical or perhaps health issue that brought then down in that area

Aircraft malfunction, weather, inexperience, unforeseen obstacle like birds or wire cable not updated on a navigation map. Some seem to go right for the age thing when they read these post.

looking into why the glider crashed, a local police spokesman told AFP.

I'd guess it crashes due to a lack of altitude.

Sailplanes (naturally) have a very good glide profile. That means that if the pilot is incapacitated while flying, the glider can travel quite a ways before encountering terrain. I could easily see an un-piloted glider over open fields traveling over a residential area before encountering an obstacle. An autopsy should be able to determine if the pilot was dead prior to impacting the houses.

On the other hand, two-seaters are generally used for training flights, so the passenger should have had flight controls as well. It could have been something caused by the trainee/passenger that the pilot couldn't recover from.