On Thursday, February 5, 2015 at 8:33:52 PM UTC-7, Mike the Strike wrote:
I've known of more than a couple of incidents involving inadvertent opening of spoilers that were not caught by the pilot and led to an accident or nearly so.

I was taught (by a German instructor) always to visually check spoilers when deploying them and again to check they were closed, something I have always done. I also only deploy spoilers when within safe distance of the field and almost never while flying cross-country. I remember a colleague who outlanded when he deployed his spoiler and the handle broke off, leaving them fully open!

Mike

As long as we are discussion solutions to unintended open spoilers, why not adopt the airplane solution in the form of an annunciator panel on the glare-shield consisting of LED lights? A big red one would indicate unlocked open spoilers and a small green one indicating they are closed and locked. The idea could be extended to the usual red-yellow-green gear warning and even to unlatched canopies and tail dollies still on the tail-boom.

Panels are being packed with an almost unbelievable array of computerized instruments, why not add a row of simple LED lights that might eliminate a few accidents? We now have good batteries and very bright, efficient LED's so why not?