![]() Unfortunately he does not have the skills to adequately control the glider at high speed. The pilot knows a little theory and speeds up to achieve best glide into the headwind. At this point he elects to try to glide back into the chosen paddock rather than land in the alternate paddock immediately below. By the time he notices he’s rapidly drifting downwind he has a marginal glide back over the trees to the chosen paddock. Due to inattention the pilot drifts downwind of the landing paddock. The pilot safely arrives over the centre of the chosen paddock with plenty of altitude and proceeds to lose height as usual with a series of 360 turns. He decides on the distant smaller landing paddock surrounded by trees because it is near a road and easier for pick up, instead of the large closer open one which involves a 300m carry out. A hang glider pilot is setting up for a landing in strong winds. If this process continues on unchecked then an accident may occur.Ĭonsider the following typical accident scenario. The resultant increase in pilot workload makes further errors more likely. If this situation is not correctly assessed and the problem dealt with increasingly difficult decisions and technically challenging flying are required. This then places the pilot and aircraft in a situation where a more challenging decision or technically difficult flying is required. ![]() What usually happens is that a pilot makes an initial bad decision or technical flying mistake. While pilot error is the primary cause of almost all accidents an accident rarely ever stems from a single pilot error. The primary concept to understand is that of “cascading chains of causation”. Once you have read them I think you will agree that avoiding accidents has little to do with luck and everything to do with good management. The ideas embodied here are wide spread throughout the general aviation community but have been slow to filter through to our free flying community. Is it perhaps luck, or is it in reality good management. There simply is not a select group of aviators so diminished in mental capacity as to represent the sole source of supply for accidents.īut what is it that separates the close shaves from the accidents. I consider myself fairly bright, cautious and a better than average pilot but I will readily admit to perhaps more than my fair share of close shaves. First let’s dispense with the “it won’t happen to me” syndrome. For each accident there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of “close shaves” which had the potential to result in an accident. The accidents which do occur are really only the tip of the iceberg. The point of this article is to take a closer look at how accidents occur and more importantly how they can be averted. Like most pilots who have been involved in aviation for any period of time I have witnessed some accidents and heard stories of hair raising escapes.
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