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British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association

Incident Reports (Informal)

All incident reports submitted via the new FIDA pan Europe incident reporting system after 21 January 2026 that have been approved for publication can be found below. This page will also slowly include a growing list of older incident report summaries.

Unfortunately, whilst all our old incident reports were successfully imported into the FIDA database by our German colleagues, they failed to include the status of the "publish" field used to determine if it can be made available on our website. As a result around 1,400 old reports now have to be reviewed and cross checked before they can appear here. This is a painfully slow process, and is likely to take some time to complete.

In the meantime a full list of all incident reports submitted via the old Euro system and passed for publication is available on our Incident reports Archive page

Incident reports are available in summary form for the following wing types:

Incident reports for paraglider wings are displayed below in summary form.

The BHPA incident reports database is fully searchable. To refine your search you can specify a particular wing type and select "or" or "and". For example, if you want to search for paraglider incidents at Hay Bluff, for best search results select paraglider from the drop down list and the "and" option.

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

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

There are 84 entries for paraglider wings

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Date	Pilot	Location	Wing Type	Summary	Injury
Incident Reports

Date 16.01.2026 (F13007)	Pilot male Age: 55 Rating: P	Location Paarl, ZA Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), light turbulence (no pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Ozone Swift 5 Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot clipped a tree on landing approach, snapping a stabilo line.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Date 16.01.2026 (F13002)	Pilot male Age: 54 Rating: P	Location Derbyshire, GB	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Niviuk Artik 6 Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot was not able to operate their accelerator system inside their Niviuk Arrow (pod harness) in flight. Upon investigation the pilot identified that a loop on the speedbar line was caught on the waist strap system and was no longer routed correctly. This was hidden from view by the pocket and instrument clip.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Date 14.01.2026 (F13001)	Pilot male Age: 52 Rating: P Flying Experience: 23 years 450 flights	Location Werfenweg, AT Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions: moderate (3m/s), not turbulent, leeside	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Mac Para Paradis Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot was thermalling and induced a tight turn which led to a collapse with twisted lines. The pilot deployed their emergency parachute which did not open fully before the pilot crashed through the tree canopy, due to the low height above ground at which the incident occurred.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Date 09.01.2026 (F12999)	Pilot male Age: 62 Rating: P Flying Experience: 32 years 706 flights	Location N/A, GB	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Flow Paragliders Fusion	Summary The pilot discovered that multiple conflicting line specifications exist for this paraglider (hard copy, two online manual versions, and a separate spec from the manufacturer), with differences of up to 16 mm.	Injury Pilot: unhurt

Date 20.12.2025 (F18961)	Pilot male Age: 70 Flying Experience: 29 years 700 flights	Location Ettrick Valley, GB Wind Strength: 25-30 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: SupAir Step X Launch Type: foot	Summary After 25 minutes of flight the pilot noticed the wind increasing, making penetration into wind difficult. They were gale-hanging on full speedbar above their chosen landing area, gradually drifting backwards towards a wall. Upon releasing the speed bar they descended rapidly and landed hard, sustaining injury.	Injury Pilot: minor injuries

Date 22.05.2017 (F11361)	Pilot male Age: 55 Rating: P Flying Experience: 18 years	Location Wiltshire, GB Wind Strength: 20-25 km/h Conditions:, leeside	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Advance Sigma 9 Launch Type: foot	Summary No details available	Injury Pilot: fatal (death within 30 days after the accident)

Date 21.05.2017 (F11352)	Pilot male Age: 55 Rating: P Flying Experience: 14 years	Location Manchester, GB Wind Strength: 5-10 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Ozone Element 2 Launch Type: winch/vehicle tow	Summary No details available	Injury Pilot: seriously injured (more tan 48h in hospital, fractures (except for finger, nose, toe), haermorrhage, ligament rupture), head injuries, internal injuries, pelvis, hands, arms, shoulder, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, cervical spine

Date 22.01.2017 (F11278)	Pilot male Age: 66 Rating: CP Flying Experience: 14 years	Location Pokhara, NP Wind Strength: 0-5 km/h Conditions: calm (1 m/s), not turbulent	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Swing Arcus 6 Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot landed in a tree then fell while attempting to climb down.	Injury Pilot: fatal (death within 30 days after the accident), internal injuries

Date 29.10.2016 (F11268)	Pilot female Age: 39 Rating: CP Flying Experience: 13 years	Location Catalonia, ES Wind Strength: 10-15 km/h Conditions: unknown, light turbulence (no pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Air Design Rise 2 Launch Type: foot	Summary The pilot lost control of the paraglider in close proximity to the hillside and impacted the ground sustaining fatal injuries.	Injury Pilot: fatal (death within 30 days after the accident), internal injuries

Date 14.10.2016 (F11267)	Pilot male Age: 48 Rating: P Flying Experience: 30 years	Location Bir, IN Wind Strength: 5-10 km/h Conditions: moderate (3m/s), moderate turbulence (occasional pilot action required to maintain control)	Wing Type Paraglider Wing: Bruce Goldsmith Design Tala Launch Type: foot	Summary Pilot suffered an asymmetric collapse at low level while thermalling. Pilot was unable to regain control of the glider and deployed his emergency parachute. Parachute had insufficient height to deploy fully and pilot impacted rocks.	Injury Pilot: fatal (death within 30 days after the accident), head injuries

Last updated: 18 May 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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