Tourism Department seeks report on death of Belgian paraglider

The Tourism Department has sought a report from the Baijnath authorities, which control paragliding activities in Bir-Billing, on the death of a Belgian paraglider in a mid-air collision with another paraglider yesterday.

District Tourism Officer Vinay Dhiman told The Tribune that it seemed that there was some breach of protocol for paragliding in Bir-Billing, leading to the fatal accident. The Belgian paraglider died in a mid-air collision with another paraglider. “Generally, paragliders have to maintain a time difference during take-off from Billing to avoid such accidents. We have sought a report from the local authorities to ascertain if there was a breach of protocol,” he added.

Sources said that a Russian paraglider, Alexy (50), had died in Bir-Billing due to be a heart attack, as per preliminary investigation. He was staying in Bir with some of his friends. On Monday night, he went to sleep in his room but did not wake up in the morning. People informed the police about his death. On receiving information, the police reached the place and took the Russian paraglider’s body into custody and sent it for a post-mortem.

Many foreign paragliders have reached Bir-Billing to participate in the Paragliding World Cup to be held from November 2. The Belgian paraglider’s death three days before the start of the world cup has once again brought to the fore the concerns regarding the safety of paragliders in Bir-Billing.

A helicopter with a winch was mandatory for carrying out rescue operations to evacuate paragliders stranded in high mountains. However, at Bir-Billing, no helicopter was available at the site but for the World Cup days.

Foreign paragliders, who come to Bir-Billing, get an insurance cover for accidents. Whenever a foreign paraglider gets trapped in mountains after an accident, the authorities concerned in Baijnath contacts his insurance company. The SDM, Baijnath, heads the committee that monitors paragliding in Bir-Billing. It takes about three to four hours to contact the foreign insurance company. After the insurance company gives the go-ahead, a helicopter company is contacted to carry out a rescue operation in mountains.

The hired helicopter takes two to three hours to come to Bir-Billing for the rescue operation. Since rescue operations cannot be carried out at night, it generally takes more than 24 hours to rescue a trapped paraglider, the sources said. In Europe, the maximum rescue time was about 40 minutes.