The sight of a motorized paraglider pilot dangling from high-tension cables was enough to cause traffic jams – it also didn’t do wonders for the man’s underwear, either.
It took four hours to get the 54-year-old man down, during which time he desperately kicked his legs, 80 metres up, to stop himself swinging into a second cable and thus making a circuit and receiving 10,000 volts – the lethal electric chair uses four times less, by the way.
So, there he was one moment, the king of the skies, put-putting across the heavens in suspended splendour when the engine cut out. With a normal paraglider, you have plenty of gliding capacity, but with the weight of a stalled motor and a huge fan-like propeller, you don’t get to choose much which way you will be heading – it’s generally the shortest route down.
The incident occurred near Cenes de la Vega, Granada and 80 metres above the ground. Fortunately for him, the police have a protocol concerning high tension cables, which mean as soon as they heard that our luckless paraglider pilot was dangling – pretty keen not to connect with a second cable next to the one his chute was caught on – they contacted the electricity company to cut off the power. Even with the power off, though, you still get a mild discharge from the residual charge in the cables.
There were three other fliers, who had all set off together in their separate machines from a nearby hilltop to enjoy a slow cruise over La Alhambra before returning via Lanchar de Genil.
With the man dangling in full view, even before dusk drew in, drivers had stopped their cars to gawk at the struggling man, causing tail backs, thrilled and awed by the sound of crackling discharges and “eeks!” coming from the star of the show.
Anyway, a crane with a long extending arm lifted the firemen up to free him from his harness – the 80m drop had dissuaded him from freeing himself from it up till then. The fire service’s extending ladders didn’t have the reach needed, so they phoned a company that hires out construction cranes of all sizes to hire the biggest for the task. Fortunately for the victim, being a member of the paragliding federation, he has an insurance, which will cover the cost of the crane, which oscillates between 600 and 1,000 euros the hour – the crane was needed for nearly two.
An article in the Ideal in the following days claims that he allegedly deliberate went for the cables, as being preferable to hurtling straight down with the dead weight of the motor…
(News: Cenes de la Vega, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: Ideal.es)