The Risks and Rewards of Hang Gliding

October 2017

On her third towed hang gliding lesson in her home country of Guatemala in 2012, Majo Majors ran several steps, and then was pulled off the ground by a motorized tow system. She lifted off only briefly before unintentionally turning right and crashing into a fence about 20 feet from where she was flying. Majors broke both her arms and took a year to recover. "My mom had to do everything for me while I was [injured]," she told me. "Everything."

About five years after her crash, we were sharing flying—and accident—stories after I’d landed from my flight that day (see highlights from that flight in the video below). Nearly flipping my hang glider mid-flight two years before and having to throw my parachute was the worst experience I had to share from 10 years of hang gliding. I’d not seen a friend die in person, as she had, but I personally knew three pilots who’d had fatal accidents while hang gliding.

"Why do we all keep doing it?" I asked her at one point.

"It’s so fulfilling. It’s hard to just say no," the 34-year-old replied.

Two gliders soar above Sylmar, California.

Risk is an indisputable aspect of hang gliding, a sport which involves an individual pilot attached to an unpowered, open-air craft consisting of a metal frame, wires and cloth—essentially, a large kite. Around the time that I began high-altitude flights from Kagel Mountain (elevation 3,500 feet) in Sylmar, California, two pilots died flying at the site. But it took nearly a decade of being a pilot—seeing friends’ injuries, my own (so far, thankfully) minor injuries and major accident, and my mom’s broken arm—before I began more seriously considering why we fly, especially after having personally experienced the risks.

In 2013, a few years before I started contemplating this question, the United States Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association began detailing fatality rates on its website, increasing transparency and visibility of statistics that had previously been published as accident reports in the organization’s monthly magazines. Although hang gliding fatalities average around three per year according to USHPA statistics, the especially high accident rates just a few years after the USHPA increased access to the statistics intensified the national conversation among hang glider pilots about safety, bringing even more attention to a popular topic.

The small size of the U.S. hang gliding community also increases the focus on the risk. USHPA hang gliding membership numbered slightly less than 3,000 pilots in September 2017, and represents the majority of active pilots in the United States. As a result, many pilots know someone who has been injured, or even died participating in the sport, and yet choose to fly regardless.

"As part of your training, and from being in the community and hearing the sad stories, you become more aware of the risk as you get into it," said pilot Hugh McElrath, reflecting on the dangers of the sport. "But at that point you’re into it and you’ve started to reap the rewards, and you’re up there for 3 hours, 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 feet above the terrain, and you’re saying ’Oh my god, this is one of the greatest experiences of my life, and it’s worth whatever risk there is.’"

Undaunted by Injury

Knowledge of the fatality rates plus personal experience with injury would seem to make pilots warier of the sport. Many pilots have had injuries that significantly disrupted, and thus more seriously affected, their lives. In many cases, they overcame any hesitation about flying again after recovering.

Frequent thoughts of hang gliding led Janyce Collins to rejoin the sport around 2007, several decades after a crash early in her flying career spooked her into quitting. Just a year after starting to fly again, she misjudged a landing, shattering her heel bone and breaking her right arm.

"I truly realized the sport kills people," she said, adding that her year of recovery was harder mentally than physically. While she was afraid to fly at first, several flights and encouragement from fellow pilots helped her again find joy in the sport. Now 58, Collins said she plans to hang glide for as long as possible. "I think it’s just how addicted you are to flying," she said earnestly. "If I were going to quit, it would’ve been a while ago."

Hang gliders atop Kagel Mountain in Sylmar, California.

Caitlin Benti-Szalai also said that she intends to continue flying despite experiencing a significant injury. At the end of one flight she took while living for two years in New Zealand, a dust devil (a common hazard for hang gliders) blew through as she was landing, lifting her right wing. "So I cartwheeled with my left wing into the ground, chest first through the control frame" of the glider, the 22-year-old said. Though she didn’t feel pain at first, she knew that both of her arms were broken.

Since recovering and returning to California last year, she has flown on the training hill and is now teaching her boyfriend to fly. A pilot since age 15 in a family of hang glider pilots, Benti-Szalai called hang gliding "super meditative," and said she plans to return to high-altitude flying with a more careful approach and an increased respect for the sport. "I’m not afraid of flying at all," she said. "If you’re not willing to die for it, then don’t do it at all."

Many extreme sports participants appear to agree with Benti-Szalai. "The only accident is death," an extreme athlete once told Frank Farley, a professor of psychology at Temple University. Farley studies risk-taking behavior and developed the Type-T personality model, in which "T" stands for "thrills." He said that extreme sports, including hang gliding, "attract people who have this tolerance for uncertainty, tolerance for ambiguity and risk."

"Many Type-T’s show this quality, failure is like a lesson," he said, echoing many of the pilots I’ve heard discussing their accidents. "You learn from it, you move on."

For athletes participating in extreme sports such as hang gliding, "The rewards are worth the risks," said Britton Brewer, a professor at Springfield College with expertise in the psychology of sport injury rehabilitation. "Look at people’s motives for participating in the first place," he added. "That relationship doesn’t necessarily get severed or altered just because the person sustained an injury."

Safety

Hang glider pilots constantly debate the safety of the sport, both in person and through discussions occupying a multitude of posts on the HangGliding.org forums. In 2015, 10 hang glider pilots lost their lives to flying. That year represented the highest number of fatalities since 1988, according to USHPA records. The rate remained high in 2016, with 8 pilots dying out of around 3,200 active members in the United States.

The 2015 accident rate was "atypical," said Martin Palmaz, executive director of the USHPA. He said it would be difficult to determine the cause, but that age, complacency, and pushing safety boundaries could have affected the high number of deaths. "I think in general, most people take on more risk than they understand they’re taking when they decide to fly in certain conditions," he said, adding that safety comes down to effective risk management.

Between 2000 and 2016, the hang gliding fatality rate averaged about three a year, with membership fluctuating between around 3,000 and 6,000 pilots. The rate is likely higher than that of many other extreme sports, which may have slightly more fatalities but also a significantly larger participant base. In 2016, 21 fatalities occurred among over 30,000 skydiving members of the United States Parachute Association. Between 2011 and 2012, the National Ski Areas Association reported 54 fatalities among over 9 million skiers and snowboarders.

It’s difficult to accurately determine the accident and fatality rates in hang gliding, according to Palmaz. Because hang gliding is relatively unregulated, he said, "We don’t know how many flights are occurring per year, and we don’t know how many accidents are occurring per year." The organization is working toward collecting better data on safety during instruction, and encourages pilots to self-report accidents both for statistical trends and to raise awareness. Still, Palmaz said that accidents are undoubtedly underreported.

Since hang gliding began in the 1970s, the risk has largely shifted from beginners to intermediate pilots, according to Joe Greblo, owner of Windsports Soaring Center in Los Angeles County. Many pilots then were self-taught, used less reliable equipment, and flew in more hazardous conditions, but he said that the training process now is much safer. Greblo said that the most dangerous part of modern hang gliding occurs after students graduate from the school program and eventually transition to flying in more challenging places and conditions, but now without instructor supervision. "All of these pilots want to grow into more fun and adventurous forms of hang gliding," he said. "They may be the best-trained pilot in the world when they leave the school, but there’s still the learning process that continues."

"The air is invisible," he added. Unlike in surfing or rock climbing, "You can’t see the dangers, which makes it uniquely challenging."

Wolfgang Siess, a professional hang glider pilot and Austrian national championship holder, agreed that hang gliding is risky, but that "if you play it smart, you can totally get away with it safely. It’s just a matter of risk management and your own training." He attributed more than 90 percent of accidents to pilot error, and said that he doesn’t understand why relatively few people become hang glider pilots.

"People tell me hang gliding is crazy and then they go downhill mountain biking, and I’m pretty sure that’s more dangerous than hang gliding," he said. "Same thing, how many people ride motorcycles and tell you hang gliding is dangerous?"

"Once a Pilot, Always a Pilot"

While many pilots appear to accept the risks of the sport, some of their family members are less pleased.

Cynthia Benti is Benti-Szalai’s mother and a former hang glider pilot herself. "I kind of always wished she wasn’t going to fly," she said. But she understands her daughter’s desire to hang glide, and said that if her own back pain did not prevent it, she would probably still fly herself. "People who need to fly, need to fly," she said.

Of course, not all hang glider pilots persist in the sport, yet several former pilots expressed a desire to hang glide again.

Matt Hart, 46, flew for several years in spite of his family’s disapproval of the danger. His one crash landing resulted in expensive glider repair but no injuries, yet over time his fear of flying increased. Then, one of his best friends, a pilot of 25 years who had initially introduced him to the sport, crashed and ended up in a coma. "That was the final straw," Hart said.

Still, Hart said he hasn’t ruled out hang gliding entirely. "When I look up at the sky I’m thinking about thermals, even though I don’t fly anymore," he said. "I think once a pilot, always a pilot."

Former pilots’ reflections on hang gliding actually elucidated some of the most memorable and appealing aspects of the sport. And, whether they stopped flying due to lack of time or concerns about safety, many former pilots said they still consider returning to hang gliding.

A hang glider pilot about to launch in Big Sur, California.

"I haven’t quite let go," said Christa Percival, who stopped flying around 2016 to devote more focus to her visual arts career. She said she misses the ego boost from people’s reactions to her identifying as a hang glider pilot. "And also, it’s extraordinary in a way that nothing else is. I mean, how many opportunities do people have to be picked up by a kite and guide their own action through the air?" she added. "I used to fantasize about that as a small child."

Percival also said she misses the camaraderie of hang glider pilots. Hugh McElrath, who recently chose to stop hang gliding unless he figures out a way to fly safely despite his declining athletic ability, agreed. When he traveled to flying sites around the country, local pilots would put him up in their homes and introduce him to their sites. "Everywhere I went, I had friends," the 66-year-old said. "It changed my life."

McElrath said that the community is unique, with a closeness he did not experience in his sailplane club. Even though pilots fly individually, he said, "it’s really kind of a communal activity." He added that pilots’ shared risk-benefit analysis strengthens their mutual bonds. "When you’re in that group, not only is there all the camaraderie, but it’s also sort of brother-in-arms shared facing of risk," he said.

Janyce Collins, who returned to hang gliding after a several-decades-long hiatus, added that she loves the feeling of freedom. "There’s nothing that quite compares to running off a mountain and instantly going up, and looking down and seeing birds below you," she said. "The world is just a lot more beautiful from high above. And I think it’s also the way nothing matters in those moments except for flying. You lose all track of everything else."

After breaking her arms during her lesson, Majo Majors kept dreaming about flying. "Having big wings and just flying like a bird, it just wouldn’t leave my head," she said. Two years after her accident, she learned to fly in Florida and later married one of her instructors, U.S. hang gliding national champion Zac Majors.

With her own injury and friends’ accidents, she said she has sometimes considered quitting. "But every time I go to a flying site and I see people flying, it’s like no, I cannot just quit," she said. "I want to do it."