ICON Aircraft Introduces ICON Sense Flight Safety System to Reduce A5 Landing Gear Incidents

ICON Aircraft has unveiled ICON Sense, an integrated flight safety system built specifically for the A5 amphibious light sport aircraft. The system targets a critical problem: landing with the gear in the wrong position, which is the leading cause of fatal accidents in amphibious aircraft.

Announced today at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, ICON Sense combines GPS navigation, radar altimetry, and advanced predictive software to warn pilots before they touch down on water with the landing gear extended—or on land with it retracted. The system integrates with the A5’s existing Garmin G3X Touch avionics and will ship as standard equipment on new aircraft beginning in Q4 2026. Retrofit availability for the existing fleet of 200+ aircraft already in service will follow.

It’s a deceptively simple mistake with catastrophic consequences. “Wrong-gear landings are the number one cause of fatal accidents in amphibious aircraft,” according to Skytron Avionics, ICON’s technology partner on the project alongside Avilution. The amphibious aircraft community has grappled with this problem for decades. Pilot Jon Karkow and engineer Cagri Sever died in a 2017 ICON A5 accident near Lake Berryessa, California. Baseball Hall of Famer Roy Halladay also lost his life in 2017 in a separate aviation accident.

How ICON Sense Works

The system leverages Avilution’s modular eXtensible Flight System (XFS) software platform to predict the pilot’s landing intention in real time. It analyzes GPS position data, high-resolution water topography databases, and precision radar altimeter feeds to determine whether the pilot is approaching a water surface or land runway. If the landing gear configuration doesn’t match the intended surface, the system delivers a clear spoken warning—early enough for the pilot to abort the approach and reposition the gear.

The engineers deliberately designed it to minimize nuisance alerts that can distract crews during critical phases of flight. It combines voice callouts for landing proximity from the radar altimeter, verbal warnings for critical system failures (landing gear malfunction, flap failure, low fuel), and distinct audible prompts for existing annunciators including battery, fuel pressure, engine, and alternator warnings.

ICON acknowledged the problem plainly on its safety page: “It seems simple enough: extend the landing gear when intending to land on a runway or other prepared surface, and retract the gear when landing on the water. The unfortunate truth is that accidents and incidents caused by landing with gear in the incorrect position occur far too frequently.”

Fleet Impact and Production Timeline

The A5 has delivered more than 200 aircraft since 2016 and is the world’s first spin-resistant light sport amphibian. Its folding wings, 100 horsepower Rotax engine, and carlike cockpit attract both experienced pilots and newcomers—which historically has compounded the gear-configuration risk. Sport pilots operating in amphibious environments for the first time sometimes lack the procedural muscle memory needed to avoid mistakes.

ICON is ramping production after a three-year pause following its 2024 acquisition by SG Investment America (part of the ShangGong Group). The company plans to resume full A5 production in 2027 at a new manufacturing facility in China, while the Vacaville, California operation will handle engineering and customer support.

Pricing for ICON Sense retrofit kits will be announced closer to the Q4 2026 availability date. Pre-orders are open now.

Skytron indicated the XFS platform may be adapted for other aircraft manufacturers. That suggests ICON Sense could become the foundation for a broader industry push toward gear-configuration alerting across the amphibious aircraft market—especially as the segment continues to expand under the FAA’s new MOSAIC light sport aircraft rules.

Sources

• General Aviation News
• ICON Aircraft Official Announcement — EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, July 29, 2026
• Skytron Avionics Press Release
• Avilution LLC — eXtensible Flight System (XFS) Documentation