Soaring Safety Foundation

The Soaring Safety Foundation (SSF) is the Training and Safety arm of the Soaring Society of America (SSA). Our mission is to provide instructors and pilots with the tools needed to teach/learn both the stick & rudder skills and the Aeronautical Decision Making skills needed to safely fly a glider. We also provide information and analysis of incident and accident trends in order to develop better training tools.

Data collected from Open Glider Network (OGN) as of Sunday April 27, 2025

Duration	Gliders	Flights	Hours
Year to Date	2372	13557	15416.63
Last 7 Days	758	2353	2901.58

This table shows the number of individual gliders that recorded a flight in the OGN tracking system ant the number of flights/hours those gliders flew.

Flight Training
Videos , CFI Webinars , and Scenario Database

These videos are introductory in nature and are geared to learning to soar, or a new soaring skill.

Flight Safety
Videos and Incident Database

These videos are safety oriented and appropriate for glider pilots of any skill level.

Visit the Soaring Safety Foundation's Youtube Channel
The SSA's YouTube Video Playlist

The Soaring Incident Database is now available to help pilots, safety officers, clubs, and commercial operators develop new programs that can help prevent incidents from becoming major accidents. See more incidents by searching the database or register a new incident.

Region	Pilot Certificate	Pilot Injuries	Passenger Injuries	Type of Flight	Launch Method	Type of Aircraft
Midwest	Commercial	None	None	CrossCountry	Aero Tow
Incident Activity	Damage to Aircraft	Damage to Canopy	Incident Date	Incident Time	Weather	SSA Member
Flight	None		2024-07-07	1600-1800	Clear	Yes
Incident Description	While flying wings level with approximately 3 miles of lateral separation from the outermost boundary of class B airspace, and at an altitude common for soaring in the area, a near miss occurred between the glider and a large corporate jet. The glider pilot estimated the vertical separation as 200 feet and the lateral separation as near zero. After catching sight of the jet at a range of approximately 1/2 mile through a FLARM collision alert indicating traffic at 4:00, the glider pilot judged that the best action was to continue to fly with the wings level. The glider pilot observed no maneuvers by the jet.
Other Comments	This incident likely would have been avoided had the sailplane been transponder equipped. Although the glider was equipped with FLARM and this did contribute positively to the pilot’s situational awareness, range was evidently insufficient in this case to provide adequate time to see the traffic and maneuver to avoid the near miss. With primary radar seeing less use for identifying traffic, non-transponder equipped gliders are essentially invisible to ATC, as well as other traffic equipped with TCAS, PCAS, or ADS-B-in.