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 6 published incident report summaries for Rigid Hang Gliders

Date	Pilot	Location	Wing Type	Summary	Injury
Incident Reports
Date 23.05.2026 (F19455)	Pilot male Age: 69 Rating: P Flying Experience: 48 years 794 flights (7 flights)	Location Sutton Meadows airfield, Cambridgeshire, UK Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control), dustdevil	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: La Mouette Top Secret Launch Type: aero tow	Summary During an aerotow trolley launch, as the pilot was about to release from the trolley handles, a sharp vertical movement of the trolley/glider/pilot was detected. The trolley was then released half a second later and the flight continued without further issue. Subsequent examination of the trolley showed that the left front wheel vertical spindle (that allows the wheel to turn left to right) had bent backwards, so that the left wheel tyre was significantly closer to the frame of the trolley than its normal 30mm clearance.	Injury Pilot: unhurt
Date 25.07.2025 (F12900)	Pilot male Age: 65 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 50 years 2500 flights (40 flights)	Location Ager, Ager, ES Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions: very strong (>5m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: A.I.R Atos VR Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot noted that the glider was nose-heavy in flight. On landing, the adjustable tailplane detached from its assembly. The pilot cited incorrect fitting of the tailplane to its moving mount, which was not detected during their pre-flight check.	Injury Pilot: unhurt
Date 24.06.2014 (F10904)	Pilot male Age: 50 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 26 years 500 flights (50 flights)	Location Col de Forclaz, Annecy, FR Wind Strength: 25-30 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s), strong turbulence (constant pilot action required to avoid loss of control)	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: AIR VR10T Launch Type: foot	Summary No details available	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), pelvis, feet, legs
Date 29.09.2013 (F10815)	Pilot male Age: 56 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 33 years	Location Swanborough, UK Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions:, not turbulent	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: Aeros Phantom Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot was disturbed during rigging a number of times to help others. Forgot to attach inboard control wire. Pilot took off and realised he had no ability to turn left. Pilot attempted to land but lost all control and crashed doing approx 60mph.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), feet, legs, lumbar spine, thorax
Date 18.05.2013 (F10726)	Pilot male Age: 50 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 30 years	Location Bell Hill, Dorset, UK Wind Strength: 25-30 km/h Conditions: strong (5m/s)	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: AIR Atos VR Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot approached for top landing but had not gone far enough back. Elected to do big flare rather than overshoot resulting in glider climbing to 5m then diving into the ground.	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), head injuries, hands, arms, shoulder
Date 04.05.2012 (F10607)	Pilot male Age: 33 Rating: AP Flying Experience: 45 years 1050 flights	Location Pontlottyn, Wales, UK Wind Strength: 15-20 km/h Conditions:, light turbulence (no pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Rigid hang glider Wing: AIR Atos N Launch Type: foot	Summary While on a soaring flight the pilot heard a noise and noticed one of the side wires had come off. The glider stabilised and he was able to grab the wire and hold it in place. Pilot landed safely. Pip pin not correctly inserted.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Last updated: 3 July 2026

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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