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There are plenty of things that can go wrong when a paraglider takes to the sky. However, one woman who embarked on a trip over the Alps in Austria saw it go south in a very unexpected manner when a plane flew straight through her canopy before she managed to land safely.
The Wright Brothers conducted what is considered the first successful airplane flight in 1903 while ushering in a new era of aviation. Around six decades later, the world was introduced to a different type of flight in the form of paragliding, which involves strapping yourself to a canopy designed to harness the air during journeys that can last for hours and take you thousands of feet above the ground.
The fact that paragliding does not involve any sort of vehicle means you do not need a license to take part in the activity, and it also means your movement is not officially monitored by the agencies that are tasked with keeping tabs on planes in the skies.
The pilots of those aircraft subsequently have to keep an eye out for paragliders doing their thing, which was not the case with one who was seemingly responsible for a scary incident that recently unfolded over the Alps.
A paraglider was lucky to survive after being hit by a plane while flying in Austria
Paragliders take to the skies equipped with backup parachutes they can only hope they don’t have to deploy, but a woman named Sabrina had to use the one she strapped to her back when she leapt off Schmittenhöhe, a mountain in the Austrian state of Salzburg, on May 23rd.
The 44-year-old was also equipped with a camera that was filming when a Cessna 172 appeared out of nowhere and ripped through her canopy, and it continued to run as she scrambled to deploy the parachute that facilitated a nearly two-minute descent.
🚨 WATCH: A paraglider gets hit by a Cessna 172 near the Austrian town of Zell am See.
The paraglider was able to pull her rescue parachute and land safely shortly after the incident on Saturday.
According to police, the 44-year-old Austrian had started from Schmittenhöhe in… pic.twitter.com/HYQ7euRu57
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She noted she only suffered “a few nasty bruises” as a result of that landing, and according to Krone Zeitung, a helicopter was dispatched to the forest where she touched down before flying her back to Zell am See Airport.
That was also where the 28-year-old pilot (who was conducting a sightseeing flight) landed after crashing into her, and while they were seemingly at fault, no blame has been officially assigned as authorities conduct an investigation into the incident.