Ultralight safety—New best practices guides now available

by Chris Horsten, Director, Canadian Light Sport Aircraft Association and member of the General Aviation Safety Campaign (GASC) ultralight working group

It’s a privilege to be participating in the General Aviation Safety Campaign (GASC) as a representative and stakeholder for the light sport aircraft (LSA) and advanced ultralight aircraft (AULA) community. It’s a community filled with great people and great flying adventures. But the sad reality of any sport is that there will inevitably be accidents. We may deem our aircraft to be safe, but any activity we engage in, including a walk to the mailbox, contains a margin of risk, which we either deem acceptable or not. As pilots and owners of the least regulated aircraft and licence categories in Canada, it’s up to us to understand the weight of the risks we carry and proceed with diligence. As an industry, one of the great challenges we have is identifying how and why these accidents occur. There is always lots of speculation, but without hard evidence we’ve got little we can use in order to work on prevention. There isn’t much research that would permit us to understand whether there are any trends or common causal factors. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has a classification system for ranking incidents and accidents. This is used to decide which resources to deploy and determine how in depth an investigation will go. You can find a complete description of the policy on the TSB’s website. Unfortunately, many if not most ultralight accidents don’t warrant the same kind of resources as a commercial airline accident, which makes it difficult to uncover trends.

For ultralights, things become even more complicated. Many ultralight incidents and accidents go unreported, especially if there is no injury. Pilots who think their incident isn’t worth reporting, or are afraid of possible repercussions of their misadventure, actually do a great disservice to the ultralight community because we don’t get to benefit from lessons learned or the discovery of service difficulties that exist in the fleet.

It stands to reason that a better understanding of ultralight accidents would allow for the development of better preventative measures, and therefore, the industry and its regulators need to work together to improve the reporting and analysis of such accidents if we ever hope to gain a deeper understanding and improve the statistics. Consequently, the number of “loss-of-control” findings will likely continue and vary only based on fleet hours.

What we have been able to identify from the limited research are four factors that summarize the major contributors to loss-of-control accidents:

  • Pilot proficiency
  • Maintenance
  • Decision making
  • Compliance and regulatory issues

The available research would suggest that most fatal ultralight accidents occur for pilots with less than 40 hours on type. This would suggest that proficiency plays a role in how we handle unexpected situations like engine failure. Ultralight maintenance is unregulated. There are numerous examples of accidents in which owners deviated from the manufacturer’s instructions with disastrous consequences. Decision making is another skill whose absence can lead to dire consequences. How many of us have lost a friend or know of someone who has lost their life flying into instrument meteorological conditions (IMC)? And lastly, regulatory compliance. There are plenty of ultralight pilots who regularly fly without a helmet (it is mandatory when flying in a basic ultralight and strongly recommended in an advanced ultralight), and in some accident cases, it would have saved a life. Passenger carrying is yet another regulatory issue. Cases involving pilots flying aircraft prohibited from passenger carrying have resulted in the death of an unsuspecting passenger.

These four points will be the subject of future articles.

Ultralight pilots can do a lot to lessen their chances of becoming a statistic. The aircraft you fly likely came with a pilot operating handbook (POH). It contains critical information on the aircraft’s performance capabilities, limitations, and care. This is a great place to start. Know your POH inside and out. Make copies and keep them by your night stand, in your hangar, and in your glove compartment in addition to inside your plane. Invest time in understanding everything you can about your plane. The GASC working group has produced Ultralight Safety–New Best Practices Guides. These guides may seem to state the obvious, but often the obvious gets overlooked when there are distractions or complacency.

From a personal perspective, I began following the many pilots of YouTube. They present a whole variety of aircraft, situations, good and bad habits, and the outcomes. Learning from the mistakes and successes of others is an easy way to stay sharp and vigilant. The bottom line: find something that works for you. The Ultralight Safety–New Best Practices Guides are a great resource for any pilot, but they have been specifically compiled for the ultralight pilot. Keep a copy with your aircraft and refer to it every time you plan to fly. By developing and following some good pre-flight habits, you can go a long way in maintaining your privileges to fly, and maybe even save your life.

Ultralight Safety–New Best Practices Guides links: