Is Paragliding Safe?

Tandem paraglider flying calmly over the Pacifica coast at sunset near San Francisco

Is paragliding safe? Yes. A tandem paragliding flight is one of the safest and easiest ways to experience free flight. You fly with a certified pilot from launch to landing, and statistically one flight is safer than plenty of everyday things you already do without a second thought. Here is what the data shows, in plain numbers, with comparisons that put it in perspective.

One tandem flight vs. annual driving

Start with something most of us do every day: driving. Researchers compare activities using a unit called the micromort, and the lower the number, the safer the activity. Across 2024, the average American picked up about 116 micromorts on the road, based on roughly 39,345 traffic deaths in a US population of about 340 million. A tandem paragliding flight comes in around 14.

Based on the numbers, a tandem paragliding flight is about 8 times safer than the annual risk you take driving your car.

The comparison is generous to driving, too. That 14 covers every kind of paragliding, and a tandem flight with a professional pilot sits at the calm end of the figure.

How safe is paragliding?

The most thorough study of the question, published in Wilderness and Environmental Medicine in 2022, puts a paraglider flight at about 14 micromorts, roughly one flight in 70,000. That figure spans every kind of flying, and most of it is dedicated solo pilots who fly often, chase distance, and make their own weather calls. For a passenger on one professionally flown tandem flight it is a conservative number. Across tens of thousands of US pilots flying all year, serious events are rare, and the few that happen almost all involve solo flying rather than tandem flights.

How a tandem flight compares to the annual risk of other activities

That single-flight number really comes into focus next to the things people happily do all year long. The chart below sets one tandem flight against the annual figure for each other activity, all in micromorts and drawn from published data.

Activity	Micromorts (lower is safer)
A tandem paragliding flight	about 14
Driving	about 116
Scuba diving	about 160
Skydiving	about 220
Solo paragliding	about 470
Motorcycling	about 590

Micromorts are the standard way to compare how safe activities are, and the lower the number, the safer. The first row is a single flight; every other row is an annual figure. Sources are listed at the foot of this article.

A tandem flight comes in below the annual figure for almost anything people take up, from driving to diving to skydiving. For how the two flying sports differ in the air, our paragliding vs. skydiving comparison walks through them side by side.

Is paragliding safe for beginners?

Yes, because a first flight is a tandem flight, and a tandem is built for beginners. Your pilot handles everything from launch to landing while you settle into your own harness and take in the coast. There is nothing to learn first and no fitness requirement, and first-timers here range from about age 4 to 97. For how the day actually goes, from check-in to touchdown, we wrote up what to expect on your first tandem flight.

Why a tandem flight is the safe way to fly

If you are taking a tandem flight rather than learning to fly solo, everything is set up in your favor:

A certified pilot. Tandem pilots hold a commercial-level rating and have flown the site hundreds or thousands of times. You can meet our pilots here.
Certified equipment. Wings are load-tested and rated, and the pilot carries a reserve parachute for both of you.
Conditions, chosen for you. If the wind is wrong, the flight waits for a better day. A reschedule is the system working exactly as it should.
Nothing to learn first. You settle into the harness and enjoy the view while the pilot does the flying.

The safety record keeps getting better, too. As the tandem industry has grown and professionalized, with more training and tighter oversight, its safety numbers have improved year after year.

What keeps your flight safe

The equipment, which is certified and load-tested, almost never plays a part; in the research, fewer than 1 in 100 events involve the gear. What keeps a flight safe comes down to two things, both handled for you on a tandem flight:

Conditions. Calm coastal air is gentle and predictable, which is exactly why good operators pick their window and wait for it. The steady ocean breeze at Mussel Rock is what makes our site fly so well.
Decisions. Staying well within the day's limits keeps a flight smooth, and on a tandem flight a professional makes those calls for you.

That is good news, because it means safety comes down to good choices rather than luck, and on a tandem flight the choices are in expert hands.

Our own safety record

Our own safety record is perfect. The numbers above are for paragliding as a whole, across every pilot and every kind of flying. In 22 years and tens of thousands of flights, we have never had a single injury or fatality.

Fly the coast with a certified pilot

Tandem paragliding at Mussel Rock, $189 per person. No experience needed, ages 4 to 97, 15 minutes from San Francisco. We fly only when the conditions are right.