Royal Navy Hawk T1 In Very Near Miss With Paraglider

Hawk T1 flies close to paragliders (Picture: Airprox Board).

A Hawk T1 flew within 20 metres of a paraglider above Salisbury Plain, according to an Airprox report.

A paraglider pilot was flying at about 1000-1500ft when a Hawk T1 flew past them.

The report said the jet then continued to turn to its left until it was directly on a collision course with the paraglider, eventually flying 20 metres below and between 30-60 metres to the left.

The jet also just missed another pilot who was behind him.

The paraglider pilot noted that he would have been directly in the sun from the Hawk T1 pilot's perspective, so doubted the pilot had seen him.

The report concluded that a crash was only avoided by sheer luck.

There was a gaggle of gliders about 300-400 metres further east to the pilot - some lower and some higher than him.

The Hawk apparently passed left to right through the gaggle with paragliders above and below the aircraft. 

The paraglider immediately called Salisbury Air Ops who he assumed would be working with the Hawk.

He asked if the Hawk pilot was aware of the paragliders to which the Air Ops assistant replied "probably not".

Ten seconds later, the paraglider pilot overhead the Hawk pilot call Air Ops on the radio reporting the paragliders.

The Hawk pilot said he was descending to low-level to set up for an attack run - levelling out at 1200ft.

Upon rolling southeasterly, he flew directly through the middle of 4-5 paragliders at the same altitude. 

After the incident, he immediately pitched up at 6g and climbed to 6000ft - contacting both Salisbury Range and Boscombe Radar - who provide a Traffic/Base Service in and out of the areas.

He then elected to terminate the training and return to base. 

Upon landing, Salisbury Plain Range control informed him that the paragliders were within their confines. 

The pilot noted that he was operating under an extremely high workload in a very small danger area.

He assessed the risk of collision as ‘Very High’.

The board concluded that it was "effectively a non-sighting by the Hawk pilot" and "the Hawk pilot did not know that the Bratton Camp paragliding site was active".

They recommended that The Avon Hang Gliding & Paragliding Club and Salisbury Plain Training Area Ops refresh their LoA to cover usage of the Bratton launch site and how that information is conveyed.

The risk of collision was rated as A, which means: 

"aircraft proximity in which serious risk of collision has existed".