The pilot of a glider that crashed in Southgate Township on Sunday evening remains in critical condition in a London hospital.

David A. Mulders, 57, of Aurora, Ont. was airlifted to London’s Victoria Hospital with life-threatening injuries following the crash.

OPP, EMS and fire crews were called to the scene at Side Road 15 and Southgate Road 8 around 6 p.m. on Sunday for reports an unresponsive male had been found after a crash.

Wanda Stevens lives near the scene and says the crash drew a lot of people to the area, as well as ambulances and fire trucks.

“We finally saw the glider on the ground and we knew because the ORNGE chopper came in that someone must have been very badly hurt…It was terrible, it really was. I feel so sorry for the poor fellow that was hurt.”

Mulders had reportedly been flying his Neukom Composites Glider when he experienced mechanical problems.

Grey County OPP say he was forced to abandon the craft and deploy his parachute, but it’s unclear at what altitude the incident occurred as he hit the ground hard.

Police say Mulders was one of many glider enthusiasts from the Toronto Soaring Club flying in the area on the weekend.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is investigating the crash to try to determine exactly what happened.

Ewan Tasker with the TSB says they will be looking at a number of factors.

“What we do is try to gather all the data; what pieces were where, how far where they from this, what position were they in, what’s our GPS coordinates, what’s our heading, you know, separation of them, the damage to them, things that might be on them, debris or otherwise, ground scar marks, trees, environment, weather, of course normally a lot of interviews with people who’ve seen it, that kind of stuff.”

Mulders is the second member of the Toronto Soaring Club to crash a glider this summer.

In June, 46-year-old Stephen Derek Mackie was killed when his glider went down in a farmer’s field near Fergus.

Mackie had been a member of the Canadian Air Force for 13 years.

It’s unclear what level of experience Mulders had before Sunday’s crash.