No oversight on hang-gliding
Self-regulation fails to prohibit pilots from taking flight
By Kelly Sinoski and Tara Carman, Vancouver SunApril 30, 2012
Transport Canada regulates ultralight planes and skydiving, but the sport of hang-gliding is largely unregulated — despite five fatalities across Canada in the past decade, including three in B.C.
And while there’s a body that certifies hang-gliding instructors, the Hang Gliders and Paragliders Association of Canada said it can do nothing to prevent pilots from taking people on flights, even if their membership in the association has been revoked.
William (Jon) Orders, the pilot involved in last weekend’s tragedy, in which a 27-year-old woman became detached from the tandem glider and plunged 300 metres to her death, was an experienced and paid-up member of HPAC.
But Steve Parson, a Canadian pilot who was convicted of manslaughter in New Zealand in 2010 after he failed to hook his female passenger into the glider, is still offering tandem flights on Vancouver Island on his website despite not being a member.
Parson was involved in an accident after he returned to Canada, in which one of his student took off on a solo flight and crashed during his sixth lesson.
HPAC spokesman Jason Warner said he wasn’t too familiar with what happened in New Zealand and could not “confirm or deny” whether Parson — who is no longer a member of HPAC — was still offering flights. Parson did not return phone calls to The Vancouver Sun Monday.
“We’re self-regulated. We can only advise them and tell people what the regulations are,” Warner said. “If they continue to fly, that’s up to them to do it.”
HPAC takes credit for keeping the sport self-regulated, according to its website, which states: “In this age of government regulations, it is significant that hang gliding and paragliding are the least regulated segments of aviation. This is due to the nature of these sports and the unrelenting effort of the HPAC/ACVL to keep these sports free of regulation.”
This means Transport Canada’s aviation regulations do not impose any training requirements for hang-glider or paraglider pilots, nor do they require the pilots to hold a licence or permit. Transport Canada does, however, require that pilots pass a written test known as the HAGAR examination before taking hang-gliders and paragliders into controlled airspace.
Bill Yearwood of the transportation safety board noted there are fewer regulations as the flying craft gets smaller. Big aircraft, for instance, are heavily regulated followed by smaller planes, float planes, private operations, ultralights and hot air balloons.
Ultralight aircraft pilots are required by Transport Canada to get a specialized permit for that purpose and the aircraft must meet certain design specifications. A recreational pilot permit is required for any single-engine aircraft in order for the pilot to transport a passenger.
But those regulations don’t apply to hang-gliders, who wear a harness hooked into a glider, while a passenger is connected to the same wing. The pair then usually run down a short ramp or mountain and as the airspeed increases, the glider lifts them into the air.
HPAC, a non-profit membership organization, provides a national insurance program as well as guidelines for pilots and instructors. This includes requiring instructors to be 18 or older with at least 25 hours air time in either hang-gliding or paragliding. They are also required to have a valid first-aid certificate, complete an instructor certification course and put in another 25 hours assisting a certified instructor.
The RCMP and BC Coroner’s Services are still trying to figure out what went wrong with last weekend’s fatal flight.
Orders, who has 16 years experience and offered tandem flights through his company, Vancouver Hang Gliding, had just launched off Mount Woodside near Agassiz when his passenger, Lenami Godinez, started falling.
Police noted Orders tried to grab the woman and the straps of her harness as she clutched desperately for a hold on the pilot, even clinging to his feet before she plunged 300 metres to her death. Her body was found seven hours later in a clearcut, 20 metres from one of Orders’ shoes.
Orders was charged Monday with obstructing justice in connection with “an allegation that he withheld potential key evidence which could help determine whether he played a role in any wrongdoing.”
In the New Zealand case, Parson, who was considered a Canadian pilot abroad at the time, was charged with manslaughter after he failed to properly hook 23-year-old Greek tourist Eleni Zeri into the hang-glider during a trip in 2003.
In a case eerily similar to what happened at Mount Woodside, the two launched from a site on the Remarkables mountain range, when it was discovered almost immediately that Zeri wasn’t attached to the glider.
As she hung by her hands, Parson tried to hold her, even wrapping his legs around her, but she slipped, falling 200 metres. He had faced 10 years in prison but was instead given community service and ordered to pay $10,000 NZ.
There have been other tragedies involving tandem hang-gliding flights.
In 2002, a pilot and student were being towed by an ultralight on a tandem training flight near Fort Langley when the tow line snapped and the glider spiralled out of control.
William Allen Woloshyniuk, 40, of Coquitlam and his student, Victor Douglas Cox, also 40, of Cumberland on Vancouver Island, both fell 300 metres, struck a tree and died.
Altogether, hang-gliding accidents across Canada between 2002 and 2012 have resulted in two serious injuries and five fatalities, including the three in B.C.
There were two other B.C. fatalities before 2002. Two years earlier, John Ames, a hang-gliding student, had a heart attack in the air. That crash, at the Fort Langley sea plane base, killed Ames and instructor Raymond Smith.
ksinoski@vancouversun.com http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/over ... story.html 
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hope the passager has a parachute