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British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association

Incident Reports (FIDA)

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:

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).

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

There are 277 published incident report summaries for Flexwing Hang Gliders

Displaying page 2 out of 28

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Date	Pilot	Location	Wing Type	Summary	Injury
Incident Reports

Date 04.03.2014 (F10844)	Pilot male Age: 53 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 28 years 100 flights (50 flights)	Location Valle de Bravo, Mexico City, MX Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions: very strong (>5m/s), strong turbulence (constant pilot action required to avoid loss of control)	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Avian Cheetah Evo Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot crashed into hedge having ran out of landing options attempting to maximise distance in a competition. Pilot had assumed he would reach lift coming from a ridge but the lift was too violent to utilise.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder, feet, legs

Date 01.09.2013 (F10794)	Pilot male Age: 26	Location Muggery, Sussex, UK Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions:, not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Airbourne Fun Launch Type: foot	Summary Student hung onto top of control frame pulling glider down onto wheels and his knees.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Date 30.06.2013 (F10764)	Pilot male Age: 45 Rating: CP Flying Experience: 13 years	Location Tehidy Barton, Cornwall, UK Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions:, not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Wills Wing Sport 2 Launch Type: winch/vehicle tow	Summary During tow launch pilot allowed glider to lift off too early. It then started to drift and the pilot did not correct the turn. Winch backed off and glider nosed in. Pilot did not let go resulting in broken arm.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Date 26.05.2013 (F10729)	Pilot male	Location Long Mynd, Shropshire, UK Wind Strength: 20-25 km/h Conditions:, not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Moyes Litespeed S Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot came in for top landing still in prone and on the base bar. Immediately prior to landing the hang glider wing struck the rear of a paraglider pilot who was packing his wing in the landing area. The hang glider crashed and the nose of the glider struck the pilot on the back of his neck.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), cervical spine

Date 11.08.2012 (F10642)	Pilot male Age: 36	Location Mendlesham, UK Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Avian Rio Launch Type: winch/vehicle tow	Summary Student allowed glider nose to come up during initial tow and weak link snapped. Glider recovered and dived. Pilot impacted chest first.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), head injuries, thorax

Date 18.06.2012 (F10623)	Pilot male Age: 54 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 38 years	Location Merthyr, Wales, UK Wind Strength: 5-10 km/h Conditions:, not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Wills Wing T2C Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot mistimed landing flare and landed heavily with one hand still on upright.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Date 02.06.2012 (F10620)	Pilot male Age: 52 Rating: P Flying Experience: 19 years 302 flights	Location Swanborough, Sussex, UK Wind Strength: 25-30 km/h Conditions:, light turbulence (no pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Moyes Litespeed S4 Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot misjudged wind on landing and glider stalled from 2m. Pilot did not release the uprights.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Date 13.05.2012 (F10612)	Pilot male Age: 65 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 46 years	Location Rodney Stoke, Somerset, UK Wind Strength: 25-30 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Wills Wing Talon Launch Type: foot	Summary Because of windy and turbulent conditions, pilot could not make normal landing field and landed in a field with cattle.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Date 12.05.2012 (F10613)	Pilot male Age: 46 65 flights	Location Bradwell Edge, Deryshire, UK Wind Strength: 20-25 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Airwave Pulse 2 Launch Type: foot	Summary Student made approach to top landing but was too high. Made approach to alternate landing field but stalled one wing and landed heavily. Did not let go of uprights.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Date 08.05.2012 (F10610)	Pilot male Age: 49 Rating: P Flying Experience: 32 years 500 flights	Location Merthyr, Wales, UK Wind Strength: 35-40 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s), strong turbulence (constant pilot action required to avoid loss of control)	Wing Type Flexwing hang glider Wing: Moyes Litespeed Launch Type: foot	Summary While attempting to land in windy, gusty and turbulent conditions the glider dropped a wing and came down heavily from 2 - 3m.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), hands, arms, shoulder

Last updated: 3 July 2026

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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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