Model Of Courage Dies In Hang-glider Crash
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday September 19, 2000
True grit killed 40-year-old Peter O'Loughlin, an armless and legless pilot who nose-dived into the ground in a hang-glider.
Mr O'Loughlin's courage became a byword in the Newcastle region when he lost all four limbs after crashing a hang-glider into an 11,000-volt power line at Pokolbin two years ago.
``You never know, I might be back gliding again," he said, after recovering from a series of operations in 1998. He was so badly burned surgeons gave him only a 20 per cent chance of survival.
On Sunday, Mr O'Loughlin was back gliding. With artificial limbs he was strapped into a hang-glider by friends from the Newcastle Hang-Gliding Club at Singleton airfield and towed into the air by a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Mr O'Loughlin made two successful flights. But on the third, the glider veered off path to the left in what is known as a ``lock-out glide".
The observer cut the tow rope so that Mr O'Loughlin, a veteran with 300 hours' flying time, could take control and glide down for a landing. But he was unable to correct the hang-glider, which nose-dived into the ground.
He was unconscious but alive when he was put into an ambulance but was pronounced dead on arrival at Singleton Hospital.
His father, Mr Perce O'Loughlin, said: ``I can only say Peter died doing what he loved. He had to be free again and he was."
A bachelor who lived with his widowed father, Peter O'Loughlin won the admiration of his community when he went back to work at a Newcastle health service, using voice-activated software.
Within a year of his accident, he was back in the air.
The Newcastle Herald made him the subject of an editorial on courage, saying: ``His will to live is an inspiration to us all."
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald