February 16, 2007
Close call
Did you hear about the Icarus-like ordeal that nearly killed a champion hanglider?
Paragliding 2005 World Cup winner Ewa Wisnierska, 35, was lifted to 32,612 feet by a storm that apparently killed a Chinese paraglider in eastern Australia on Wednesday. The pilots were preparing for the 10th FAI World Paragliding Championships next week, event organizer Godfrey Wenness said.
He Zhongpin, 42, died during the same weather system, apparently from a lack of oxygen and extreme cold, Wenness said. His body was found 47 miles from his launch site.
Wisnierska described Friday how she attempted to skirt the thunderstorm and when that failed, repeatedly attempted to spiral against its powerful lift.
She said she could see lightning around her and decided her chances of survival were "almost zero."
She said she radioed her team leader at 13,123 feet.
"I said, 'I can't do anything,'" she told reporters at a news conference. "'It's raining and hailing and I'm still climbing — I'm lost.'"
Officials and Wisnierska's ground team used global positioning and radio equipment to track her altitude as she soared well beyond the 29,000-foot plus height of Everest, the world's tallest peak. Wenness said she went from 2,500 feet to the maximum in about 15 minutes.
She lost consciousness for more than 30 minutes while her glider flew on uncontrolled, sinking and lifting several times, he said.
She regained consciousness at about 1,640 feet and landed safely, but had ice in her lightweight flying suit and frost bite on her face.
The power of thunderstorms is mindboggling, with vicious microbursts slamming airliners into the ground, and updrafts that can hurl airplanes thousands of feet into the sky in seconds.
This woman's experience -- and survival -- rivals that of the WWII aviator who bailed out of a B-17 without a parachute, and walked away after plunging into a deep snowbank.
With luck like that, I hope she bought a lottery ticket.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 16, 2007 10:41 PM
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