Return to the incident list: Incident List Motor goes to full throttle on engine start PPG Type: Type of Injury:

Pilot Details

Age: 45 Weight: 185 Gender: Highest rating held at the time of the incident: Pilot experience level:

Gear Details

Wing Brand: Model: N/A Size: Paramotor Frame: N/A with

Incident Details

July 27, 2009 Location of the incident: , Type of Incident:

Pilot went to start his electric start engine for warmup. The cable was gummed up a bit from oil and sand in the cable. Either his preflight of the carburetor was not complete, or he didn’t notice the issue. When he started the engine, he was at full throttle. On the sandy beach, he spun 180° trying to regain control of the motor with the throttle hand pushing into the netting. Individuals within 12′ quickly backed away. Fortunately, the spinning prop did not contact his carrier and self destruct sending broken pieces of prop everywhere. The netting pushed in enough and the kill switch on the top of the throttle was cut off by the prop, narrowly missing the pilot’s hand by < 1 inch. The pilot finally got the unit under full control, and engine speed back to idle. Unfortunately, the kill switch was gone so the pilot had to reach in and pull the spark plug boot from the spark plug to kill the engine. There were bystanders around, but we were unable to offer immediate assistance as the engine was spinning about the pilot in an uncontrolled fashion. Once the pilot had the motor under control, he had returned it to idle. He did not make it aware to us he needed assistance to kill the engine as we thought he was then just warming up the engine. Pilot later noted he thought he still had risk when he was holding the unit with a single hand and using the other hand to pull the spark plug boot. Had we known, we would have offered assistance. Without verbal communication to us, we were useless to offer further assistance.

Flight Window: Wind Speed: Type: Phase of Flight: Type of Injury: Collateral Damage: Analysis of the incident (additional input by the incident investigation team): Photos (if available):

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