Himachal Pradesh: Canadian paraglider dies; 2 foreign pilots rescued

KULLU: A 27-year-old Canadian paraglider died after crash-landing into the Dhauladhar mountains in Himachal Pradesh last week, while two foreign pilots were rescued from the upper reaches of Kangra and Kullu districts on Monday.

In keeping with her wishes, Megan Elizabeth from Canada was cremated in Bir as per Hindu rituals on Tuesday.All three paragliders had taken off from the 8000-ft Bir-Billing site near Dharamshala, which draws adventure-seekers from across the world. Elizabeth took off at 9.45am Saturday (Oct 18), but was forced to crash-land below a rocky cliff in the Dhauladhar mountains, around 40km away, at an altitude of 4,000m (13,120ft).A search and rescue operation was launched as soon as Kangra administration was informed of the accident. A team from Billing Paragliding Association (BPA) carried out helicopter sorties in the Dhauladhar mountains and dropped its leader, Rahul Singh, near the site where Elizabeth had crash-landed on Saturday evening, as there was no space for landing a chopper. Singh was to find Elizabeth and help her survive until a full rescue team arrived, but he couldn’t locate her and spent the night on a cliffside.

On Sunday morning, four more BPA team members were air-dropped, and they managed to locate her body.“Elizabeth was forced to crash-land either due to a sudden weather change or because of a problem with her glider. She used the reserve glider while crash-landing, but I guess she was flying at a low altitude and hit the rocks while landing. She sustained serious head injuries,” said BPA founder-director Suresh Thakur.BPA members carried Elizabeth’s body down for over 1,000m (nearly 3,300ft) until a chopper could airlift it to Kangra, where an autopsy was conducted. The two paragliders rescued Monday were Russian Nikita Vasiltsov and Austrian Jakob Krammer. Nikita (38) had crash-landed near Patalsu peak in Pir Panjal range near Manali, around 70km from where he took off, at an altitude of around 4,000m.Hundreds of ‘free flyers’ (solo pilots) from around the world gather in Bir-Billing in Oct every year, which is considered the best time for cross-country flights. However, Bir-Billing has seen frequent paragliding accidents and fatalities.In the past decade, over a dozen solo paragliders — mostly foreign nationals — have died after taking off from Bir-Billing, six of them in the last three years.