Horrifying moment paraglider collides with plane over Alps
Sabrina has posted videos of herself paragliding in various scenic locations before, but a clip she shared in recent days has gone absolutely viral.
Currently sitting on over seven million views on Instagram, she was ‘taken out of the sky’ when a plane collided with her.
She was soaring above the Alps when the propellor of a reported ‘Cessna 172’ tore through her paragliding chute.
And the 44-year-old caught the whole thing on camera as she spiralled through the air.
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In the horrifying, viral moment, the light aircraft can be seen passing just metres above her head. The video has been confirmed as real by police, as Sabrina yells and thrashes while her chute goes into tatters.
She wrote afterwards that she was still in disbelief ‘that I'm sitting here typing this and apart from a few nasty bruises and scrapes all around nothing really happened’.
The video shows Sabrina managing to regain control of the situation as she activated her back-up chute but it is still pretty scary to see.
Local police said she was able to safely land in a forest area after the incident in Austria and was then taken by a police helicopter to a nearby airport.
According to police, the 28-year-old pilot was, by his own admission, ‘unable to swerve in time, resulting in a collision’.
In an update, Sabrina clarified that she was ‘nowhere I wasn’t allowed to be’ and that as a paraglider, ‘you can’t dodge a small plane’.
“Generally, airplanes circulating in thermals will be avoided,” she continued.
“It will be official, without drama, it will go its proper legal path...and to the slanderers and those who speak along even though they have no idea and either talk badly to the pilot of the plane or me: hopefully you are never guilty or innocent of an accident and will have to read your comments on it.”
Sabrina said there ‘are rules and accidents happen anyway’ as she hopes it’ll make people fly ‘more attentively’.
“I understand that a paraglider, just like a glider for us, is often difficult to see - even though we are beautifully colourful,” she added.
Spokesperson for Salzburg state police, Ingrid Planitzer, said per The Times that the force had filed a charge of causing bodily injury through negligence against the pilot. They had also forwarded a report of the incident to the national aviation authorities.
Planitzer said she has ‘never seen an accident like this’ as while accidents involving paragliders are not unusual in the region, they don’t normally involve a second party.
The LADbible Group has contacted Cessna for comment.
Topics: Viral, Extreme Sports
Jess Battison