From the Board:

Report your Incidents!  Now easier and less painful than ever before!

The CHGA Board has been discussing various ways to facilitate the exchange of information regarding accidents. We think that it is important that the greater community be able to benefit from the "lessons learned" by individual members who are involved in accidents/incidents. At the same time, we want to do this without subjecting the members to the negative aspects that often accompany disclosing a flying accident at a club meeting or posting something to the net. We recognize that this process can be stressful and works against disclosure and the free flow of information.

To help resolve this difficulty, we have asked Joe Gregor to act as a reporting point and clearinghouse for incident/accident information solely for the purpose of publishing this information and his analysis periodically in Skyline. Joe is an NTSB aircraft accident guy, a physicist, an advanced rated hang glider pilot and has racked up thousands of hours in aircraft while in the air force. Procedurally, he will sit on the information for several months prior to reporting the event. The discussion and analysis will be completely sanitized; no names, no dates. He will collect information from all available sources, analyze it using standard accident investigation procedures, and make a report.

We hope that the time lag will help mask the identity of those involved and that, in any case, some of the embarrassment will have passed. Conclusions will be professional and measured. While they may be critical of pilot actions, they will not demean the pilot.

We request the membership's help in making this work. If anyone experiences, witnesses or knows of, an incident/accident/close call, Please contact Joe privately at 202 -544 5378 or gregorj@ntsb.gov.

We cannot ask him to go on safari for the information. Contact should be made sooner rather than later, of course, as the human memory is fallible. Please note he will perform NO reporting functions to the USHGA or any other organization.