Always, always, always wear your seatbelt. My flight instructor checked mine every time we got in the plane. And the canopy just flew off? I suspect there is more to this story.
“I suspect there is more to this story.”
I own a Zenith 601, and the crew sits very deep in the airframe, like a sportscar. It takes a good deal of effort to get out, having to lift yourself up and back from the seats, and get your legs out from under the instrument panel. Even without a seat belt, it would be really hard to “get thrown” from the airplane under normal flight.
The news report says the canopy “came off”, but the photo shows the canopy attached as normal via the front pivot bolts. Should the canopy become unlatched in flight, it will rotate up due to aerodynamic lift, but it won’t come off.
The only way someone could accidentally fall out would be if they were unrestrained by the lap and shoulder belts, and the canopy was unlatched, and the aircraft was encountering negative G loads or inverted.
The instructor needs to tell us what really occurred during that flight.
And we need to remember that there’s nothing funny about falling to your death, I’m amazed by some of the comments here.