What happened
On 19 August 2015, during the 13th FAI European Microlight Championship held at Kruszyn Aerodrome (EPWK), a powered hang glider, registration D-MBCA, was involved in an accident. The flight crew, consisting of a pilot and a navigator, experienced significant difficulty starting the Rotax 582 engine prior to departure. After several failed attempts using the starter and manual propeller turns, the engine was eventually running, but the pilot proceeded to take off without performing a warm-up or a pre-flight test run.
Approximately 15 seconds into the takeoff run, while the aircraft was climbing at an altitude of roughly 40 meters, the engine lost power and stopped. In an attempt to manage the descent, the pilot initiated a right turn. During this maneuver, the aircraft entered a stall at an altitude of approximately 10 meters. The hang glider entered a right-hand autorotation and struck the ground. The accident resulted in two serious injuries to the crew.
The investigation
The PKBWL reconstructed the flight sequence using data from the pilot's GPS recording and footage from a camera mounted on the right side of the wing. The investigation focused on the engine's failure to start reliably and the subsequent flight maneuvers following the loss of power.
Findings
- The primary cause of the accident was a wing stall occurring during a turn while attempting to land following an engine failure.
- A contributing factor was that the takeoff was performed without warming up the engine, which had already proven difficult to start during the pre-flight phase.