NZHPA Safety taskforce summary - #8 EQUIPMENT CONSIDERATIONS

?Equipment is a tricky subject within free flying safety because it is clearly integral to flying (and flying well) but also often contributes to incidents and accidents in obvious and subtle ways. AIRS reports show that accidents caused by modern, commercially produced free flying equipment failing in and of itself are rare. Conversely, situations where perfectly functional gear is set-up, flown, or otherwise interacted with poorly by its human operator are common.

Common causes are:

Unfamiliar with and/or mentally distracted or overloaded by new equipment
Flying equipment of too-high a performance category given currency, experience, and/or skill level.
Poorly set-up equipment

NOTE: Trend towards light-weight equipment
The growing interest and participation in hike and fly has created demand for ever-lighter paragliding equipment. While this demand has seen a progression in paraglider and harness development, it may also come at a cost of safety as pilots choose, consciously or not, to forgo some of the more substantial passive protection devices built into traditional, heavier equipment (harnesses especially).

Reserve/rescue parachutes
Reserve parachutes and their use (and non-use) remains a tricky issue with respect to free flying risk and safety in NZ. This is because their contribution to incidents is rare, but when needed, they clearly save lives.

In the entire current database dating back six years from late July 2022, there were 13 intentional reserve deployments. Of those:

Nine pilots were not injured or sustained minor, non-reportable injuries
Four pilots sustained reportable injuries
There were no reported fatalities when with a deployed reserve
EIght occurred during cross-country flying (including in competitions)
Five occurred while doing acro or SIV training (three) or ‘wingovers’ not in training (two)

Of the 11 fatalities recorded in that six-year period, none threw or attempted to throw reserves. However, most were in situations where reserves were not carried or unlikely to be effective:

Two were speed gliders not carrying reserves
One was during hang gliding training and under tow
One was a paraglider conducting wingovers close to terrain and impacted
One was a PPG that the accident report indicated was low flying and experienced a collapse and thus was too low for a reserve to be considered if the pilot was indeed carrying one.
One was an acro pilot carrying two reserves but he ended up in his wing and while he managed to clear himself from the wing he then had insufficient height to deploy a reserve in time
Two were paragliding pilots flying inland - reports are unclear as to their initial height although reports suggest that neither were likely to have had time to throw after large collapses/cascades (this is not certain from the reports)

It is rare that reserves are thrown. Of the 13 throws, none suffered life threatening injuries. It’s of course uncertain what the outcome would’ve been without throwing the reserve, but it’s quite likely some lives were saved.

Recommendations

Be honest with yourself about your skill level and the type of gear you should or should not be flying. Note that beginner wings (A and B paragliders, for example) can still bite you if you do not learn to operate them well
Be aware of all the implications of your gear choices, for example the safety features you give up when you choose to go with ultra-light equipment.
Ensure your training includes a focus on your reserve parachute - including actual practice pulling your reserve from its container and think through your decision-to-throw process.
Train your reflex to throw and practice locating your handle on every flight.
Continually check and tune your gear set-up.
Familiarise yourself with new gear by putting yourself through a shakedown process where you do not push the limits or equipment you do not yet understand.