Malcolm Echin still carries the scars of his own experience at the airfield in July, 2008. He and wife Judy, who was also a glider pilot, have watched the recent inquest into Mr Ahern’s death with interest.

“Absolutely, Andrew’s death should not have happened if fundamental safety procedures such as making sure it was safe to launch a glider had been observed,” Mr Echin said.

Mrs Echin told the Post she felt deeply for the family, including Mr Ahern’s widow, Dr Catherine Brassill and daughters Elizabeth and Felicity. She sat through every day of the September 1-5 inquest, and loaned support to the family.

The couple did not know Mr Ahern. He joined the Southern Tablelands Gliding Club in 2010, a year after they ceased involvement.

Sitting through part of the inquest’s proceedings took Mr Echin back. He unsuccessfully sued the Club over his accident on July 16, 2008 when his Blanik glider clipped powerlines and fell vertically 30m to the ground.

He suffered chest and spinal injuries, a fractured sternum, compression fractures to several vertebrae and a shattered tibia and fibula which in turn affected his knee.

These days he walks with the aid of a stick.

It was only about six months later that he commenced action in the NSW Supreme Court against the Club for “negligence.”

“In retrospect, I didn’t have adequate training to equip me for what I’d been asked to do that day,” Mr Echin said.

He joined the Club in 2005, and began learning to fly under two instructors, mostly on one weekday a month given that he worked on the main flying days over the weekend.

That was the extent of his experience when he was rated as a solo pilot some 18 months later.

On that cool July day there wasn’t much “lift” but he had three short flights.

“On the fourth flight I was off the cable at about 1200 feet and started to look for lift,” Mr Echin.

“I couldn’t find any so looked to the downwind to do an orthodox landing on runway four.”

Instead, the duty instructor asked him to do a hangar landing about 1km away as nobody else wanted the glider that day.

It meant re-planning his circuit and flying across powerlines to do an east-west landing near the hangar, for which he said he was not trained.

“That landing was used not infrequently, despite what was said at the inquest,” Mr Echin said.

The powerlines were in front of him on his final approach and he thought he would be well clear.

But Mr Echin said without realising it, he started to lose height.

“For people who have been flying for some time, this is all embedded but I was very conscious of all the things I had to keep track of,” he told the Post.

“I obviously lost a lot of height and I don’t know why. It put me in the path of the powerlines which were 30m off the ground.”

He flew under the top line but hit others, causing the Blanik to plummet to the ground.

The shock and trauma has had a lasting impact, as have the physical injuries.

Mr Echin said Club members were supportive and very sorry that it had happened.

“It was only afterwards that I thought there had been some complacency in the club’s attitude to safety,” he said.

“There was general training on landing over obstacles but no prohibition on flying over powerlines…In retrospect I had options too and didn’t have to land there from that direction but with my lack of experience, that’s the decision I took.”

Only afterwards was a rule imposed that gliders had to be well clear of the lines.

At the recent inquest, Tallong man Lindsay Gamble, who was flying instructor to both Mr Ahern and Mr Echin, was prompted under questioning to say: “I hate (flying near) those powerlines.”

In the Supreme Court Mr Echin alleged that the Club had not given him adequate training to fly solo and that the hangar area was an inherently unsafe place to land given the powerlines’ presence.

But in May 2013 Justice Davies ruled in favour of the Club and ordered him to pay $200,000 in legal costs.

In essence, he stated the Club was not liable because gliding was an inherently dangerous activity, and that flying over powerlines posed “an obvious risk.”

Mr Echin flew only once after the accident, enough to convince him it was physically impossible to continue.

Listening to the recent inquest, Mr Echin said he was reminded of his case.

He maintained the Club should have been more aware of its operating environment in both cases.

“I certainly hope they (the Ahern family) succeed where I have failed,” Mr Echin said.