Pilot Safety
Keeping ourselves and others safe on the ground (and in the air)
Accident statistics
Free flight is a serious activity, and we all need to set our primary objective as landing safely.
​
There have been two fatalities in the Canterbury-West Coast region in the last decade, and a number of very serious accidents.
​
This page links you to useful information to help you achieve that.
Think like a pilot
NZHGPA is running a safety campaign to get each of us as pilots to consider.
• My environment
• My Plan
• Myself
​
Canterbury specific information
​
Senior club members have put a lot of time into generating information to support pilots in Canterbury. Please work through these before you fly in the region, as they will help you have a better flight and fly safer.
• My environment: resources on the weather for flying in Canterbury
• My plan: you can find information on each of the major sites in Canterbury here to help you plan for your flight.
• Myself: We have been running videos over the past few years helping pilots think about their risk taking and safety in flight. We also have a really useful video on accident first aid for free flight pilots.
Incidents
Incident reporting
​
We are very keen for pilots to report all incidents, including near misses and minor injuries. While it is embarrassing to have an accident, each one represents a chance for someone else to learn. We hope to build up a database of incidents in Canterbury for pilots to see where things can and have gone wrong.
Please report any incidents, including those that you see happen to the NZHGPA Safety Page
​
Canterbury incidents
​
Incident reports contain valuable information about what can happen to when you fly our sites. NZHGPA maintains a really useful database of incidents that you can find here:
The reports for Canterbury are listed here
Useful Links
Airspace
​
Weather
​
CHGPC Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/chgpc
​
Landowners Code
http://www.nzhgpa.org.nz/visiting-pilots
​
‘Hike & Fly‘ Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/flyhikenz
​