Incident Reports | Formal Investigations | Report incident | Safety

Once passed for publication, all new incident reports submitted via the FIDA pan Europe incident reporting system will be made available on this page.

In the meantime all the 2025/6 reports submitted via the Euro system, and passed for publication before it was shut down, can be found below. Reports submitted via the earlier BHPA online reporting system can also be found below.

This page will slowly include the remaining incident report submitted via the old Euro system.

Unfortunately, whilst all of these reports were successfully imported into the FIDA database by our German colleagues, they failed to include the status of the "publish" field which determines if a report can appear on our website.

As a result around 1,400 old Euro reports have to be reviewed and cross checked before they can be included here. This is a painfully slow process, and is likely to take some time to complete.

All incident reports submitted via the old Euro system, and approved for publication, are however available on our Incident Reports Archive page

Summaries of published incident reports are available for the following wing types:

• All Wing Types
• Paraglider
• Flexwing Hang Glider
• Rigid Hang Glider
• Speedrider
• Speedflyer/Miniwing
• Powered PG
• Powered HG
• Other

You can also search the BHPA incident reports database by incident date, pilot, location, wing type, etc. For example, if you want to search for paraglider incidents at Hay Bluff, select paraglider from the drop down list, and enter Hay Bluff in the search box with the "or" option selected.

To search by incident date, please enter the day, month and year numerically as dd-mm-yyyy (eg. 03-12-2019).

All Wing Types Paraglider Flexwing Hang Glider Rigid Hang Glider Speedrider Speedflyer/Miniwing Powered PG Powered HG Other

or and

If known, total flights flown and flights flown in the past six months are displayed below, the latter being displayed in brackets.

There are 1859 published incident report summaries for all wing types

Displaying page 3 out of 186

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Date	Pilot	Location	Wing Type	Summary	Injury
Incident Reports
Date 07.08.2026 (F19722)	Pilot male Age: 57 Rating: P Flying Experience: 2 years 150 flights (75 flights)	Location Rutland Airfield, North Luffenham, Rutland Airfield, North Luffenham, UK	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: BGD Base 3	Summary During a paragliding tow release, the pilot experienced an inadvertent emergency parachute deployment. The pilot, prompted by radio instruction from the tow coach, successfully de-powered the paraglider. The pilot landed under the emergency parachute without injury. The pilot reported that at no point during the flight did they have the emergency parachute deployment handle in their hand.	Injury Pilot: unhurt
Date 02.08.2026 (F19682)	Pilot male Age: 58 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 11 years 300 flights (2 flights)	Location Park Hill, East Meon, East Meon, UK	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Flow Fusion Light	Summary The pilot launched into thermic lift and was unable to transition into a fully seated position in their harness, but remained hanging by the leg straps. They released the right-hand control to use their hand to assist them with getting into the seat properly. They described the events that followed as strong turbulence and rapid descent to the ground where they sustained injury. Witnesses described a departure from flight with the paraglider assuming a horseshoe shape immediately before the rapid descent.	Injury Unknown
Date 02.08.2026 (F19678)	Pilot male Age: 57 Rating: P Flying Experience: 2 years 150 flights (60 flights)	Location Rutland North Luffenham airfield, North Luffenham, UK Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: BGD Base 3 Launch Type: winch/vehicle tow	Summary During a tow conversion course, the pilot experienced difficulty releasing a Gin tow bridle on two successive two conversion flights. On the second flight, repeated attempts to release were unsuccessful, requiring the tow cable to be guillotined. The pilot landed without further incident. Subsequent examination of the tow release identified excessive friction between the thickened, overstitched release cord and its plastic conduit, preventing full withdrawal of the release pin.	Injury Pilot: unhurt
Date 02.08.2026 (F19668)	Pilot male Age: 57 Rating: P Flying Experience: 4 years 420 flights (40 flights)	Location Windbank, Windbank, Kettlewell, UK Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Skywalk Chili 5 Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot entered a weak thermal close to the ridge, and below ridge-top height. After a series of S turns they opted to make a 360 degree turn. The pilot lost the thermal, at the point when they were flying directly towards the hill. They made an unplanned top landing at speed, and sustained injury when they tripped and fell over.	Injury Pilot: minor injuries, hands, arms, shoulder, feet, legs
Date 25.07.2026 (F19688)	Pilot male Age: 66 Rating: P Flying Experience: 10 years 564 flights (31 flights)	Location Mendlesham, Mendlesham, Suffolk, UK Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions:, light turbulence (no pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Wills Wing T3 Launch Type: winch/vehicle tow	Summary At the end of an XC flight the pilot selected a brown field to land in. Having been turned over, it had large lumps of dry earth. The pilot ran a couple of steps holding the flare on, but they could not keep up with their hang glider and fell. The A-frame was stopped by the rough surface and the pilot went through it, sustaining injury to their wrist on the uneven ground.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder
Date 23.07.2026 (F19627)	Pilot male Age: 73 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 39 years (10 flights)	Location Parlick, UK Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions: moderate (3m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Ozone Swift 6 Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot reported their accelerator system line wrapped around a camera mount on a carabiner, which then jammed. The line line tension caused the camera mount to separate and the flight continued without further incident.	Injury Pilot: unhurt
Date 22.07.2026 (F19643)	Pilot male Age: 57 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 29 years 950 flights (51 flights)	Location Combe Gibbett, Newbury, UK Wind Strength: 5-10 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Ozone Lyght Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot was seen to make a control input taking the paraglider close to the point of stall. The pilot impacted the slope and sustained injury.	Injury Pilot: minor injuries, feet, legs, hands, arms, shoulder
Date 22.07.2026 (F19617)	Pilot male Age: 52 Rating: P Flying Experience: 5 years	Location Wingland Airfield, Spalding, lincs Wind Strength: 5-10 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Ozone Viper XC Launch Type: foot	Summary While making their first flight on a paraglider that was new to them, the pilot was seen to initiate a turn at approximately 100ft AGL and inadvertently induced a spin. The paraglider re-inflated in a nose-down attitude and descended to the ground, with the pilot sustaining injuries in the impact.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), internal injuries, hands, arms, shoulder, feet, legs, pelvis
Date 19.07.2026 (F19611)	Pilot male Rating: CP Flying Experience: 1996 years (5 flights)	Location Moel Eilio, Llanberis, UK Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions: moderate (3m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Swing Nyos Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot was dragged over the ground and sustained injury when they lost control of the wing during a reverse launch in strong conditions. The reverse launch technique used necessitated letting go of the control handles when turning to face forwards.	Injury Pilot: minor injuries, hands, arms, shoulder
Date 18.07.2026 (F19649)	Pilot male Age: 59 Rating: CP Flying Experience: Under a year 35 flights (35 flights)	Location White Wool, East Meon, BR Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions:, moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Niviuk Koyot 5 Launch Type: foot	Summary On approach to slope land the pilot became aware of a fence and made a low 180 degree turn to avoid collision with the fence. The pilot then landed at hight speed and sustained injury.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), pelvis, feet, legs

Last updated: 22 October 2026

Displaying page 3 out of 186

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A number of incident analysis reports are also available in the safety section of main portal, bhpa.co.uk. These are compiled from the individual incident reports submitted during the course of each year.

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