Claude Montpetit -- Montpetit.net -- en

Death by accident is always avoidable. Always. Take any accident, look at the events that lead to it, and you will see that it could have been avoided. Any accident. I challenge anyone to describe an unavoidable accident. The word accident, in the Oxford dictionary, is defined as an "event that is unexpected and without apparent cause; unintentional act; unfortunate especially harmful event". The key word here is "apparent"; every accident could eventually be explained. Once explained, it is easy to figure out how it could have been avoided.

Robert Martel died in a paragliding accident. His death could have been avoided. Over the last weeks, I've remained publicly quiet about it. I cried the first days each time I talked about it to my friends. I thought about it almost all the time after that. I flew last week and I thought about it.

Now where is the accident report so we can understand what happened? That is the question I hear often. After all, the report is a useful tool that will help us pilots avoiding similar situations.

But is it really so? I think not. I just realized that reports can have a twisted effect and be even harmful to the reader.

The details of the accident can lead the reader to a false feeling of security. Reading it, it is easy to think that "if it was me, this would not have happened". "I would not have gone there". "I would not have allowed to place a bag few inches from the ground at the arrival", "I would never have flown without a parachute". "If I had towed him, it would not have happened".

All these sentences are probably right. Sometimes, the smallest change of event preceding an accident may have prevented it from happening. We all heard of the butterfly effect. So of course, would you have been in this situation, it would not have happened. But does this put you in a safer position to know what happened?

Does it help you to know that you would never have grabbed a bag at 3 feet from the ground, at 80 km/h in Florida?

Does it help you to know that you would always wear a safety parachute, even when flying a motorized hang glider?

Does it help you to know that you would never fly in the Alps, on the sunny side of a ridge, with a wind coming from the back?

These are situations that caused the death of 3 pilots I knew personally. We all know about these risks and we would never allow ourselves to get in these situations. We are taught about security during instruction. We are all intelligent people. We know what we are doing. But accidents still happen, and I am sorry to say that they will continue to do so.

I personally did the same mistake Robert did on that day; flying down wind of a sunny ridge. In fact, many pilots did the same thing on that day. I saw them fly in dangerous spots all afternoon despite the meet director's warning about the risks of the prevalent northerly winds. I saw countless wings in the exact spot the director warned us about. In this area, there are plenty of such tricky spots on northerly winds. Each of these spots was flown by many wings, including myself. Each of them was unpredictably highly bumpy.

But a fatal accident occured. One pilot was a victim of this accident among the hundreds who flew from Annecy on June the 17th 2005. Of course, the report will also tell you that there were other risk factors: new wing, little xc experience, which makes it "more than 2 risk factors" type-o-thing.

We are paragliders and hang gliders. The amount of risks implied in these activities is already too high. We put ourselves more at risk of fatal accident than in any other traditional popular activity. We must accept it or quit. You may be right if you are thinking that those who died made mistakes that you would not have made. But beware, you may eventually get into a situation of your own and get hurt, a situation that others will read about thinking they would have avoided.

Odds are there, whatever you may hear from supposedly-security-oriented-individuals that want you to think that under supposedly-well-managed-conditions, nothing will happen to you. Something MAY happen anyway.

Let's just be careful in accepting the risks. We are not washing dishes, we are flying high in the air.