Definition
A set of pilot practices, training topics, and operational procedures aimed at preventing an aircraft from striking power lines, telephone wires, guy wires, or other suspended cables during low-altitude flight. It includes recognizing wire hazards, identifying their visual cues (such as support poles and towers), planning routes and maneuvers to remain well clear of them, and applying specific techniques during operations like agricultural flying, helicopter low-level work, off-airport landings, and approaches to unfamiliar sites.
Plain English
Knowing how to spot wires and cables in your flight path and flying in a way that keeps you from hitting them.
Context Anchor
Seen in training for low-altitude flight, emergency landing practice, off-airport landing areas, and any operation near roads, fields, towers, or poles.
Derivation
In aviation, a “strike” means a collision or impact, as in a bird strike. Here, “wire strike” means the aircraft hits a wire, and “avoidance” means preventing that contact before it can happen.
Why Pilots Care
Wire strikes remain a leading cause of fatal accidents in general aviation; systematic avoidance practices reduce this risk during training and operations.
Grounding Statement
At low altitude, the wire itself may be nearly invisible, so pilots often look for the poles, towers, roads, and clearings that reveal where wires are likely to be.
Intuition Check
Wire strike avoidance is not just seeing a wire at the last second and turning away. It means planning ahead, scanning for clues, and keeping enough distance so a last-second dodge is not needed.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor included a wire strike avoidance briefing before the student's first low-level cross-country in mountainous terrain.
Example Sentence 2
Effective wire strike avoidance includes maintaining higher altitudes over known utility corridors whenever possible.