Risks and Paragliding

"I just can’t accept that 24 reserves, 3 hospitalizations and one fatality are in any way acceptable for what should be the premiere event on the Paragliding Calendar.

Only yesterday my team-mate Kirsty had to land to tend to a badly smashed up pilot who’d crashed not whilst racing but when his glider collapsed and irrecoverably cravatted at low altitude whilst he was coming in to land. The sky was so full of rescue helicopters buzzing back and forth clearing up behind us that the task had to be cancelled. Let’s not forget that each reserve deployment is a potential major accident or fatality and that if the person lands safely they are ‘there but for the grace of God’. That, of course, is if the thing even deploys. Many don’t and end up wrapped up in the lines with the paraglider or just fail to fill with air. Great stories to tell in the bar till it all goes wrong.

I have to say one thing, though. I saw the fatal accident from 50 metres away and I can tell all of you that had Stefan been flying a certified wing or one with reasonable aspect ratio he would be here now. He could have steered away from the mountain from where he could have thrown a reserve or landed and that’s if the glider would even have got into this mess in the first place if it had been less pushed to the edge of the reasonable design envelope. I have it on good authority that a decent crash helmet would have had a major effect on the outcome as well."

http://ozreport.com/13.003#0

http://ozreport.com/13.003#6

http://ozreport.com/13.005#0

http://ozreport.com/13.006#3

http://ozreport.com/13.011#1