CHANDIGARH: A 47-year-old Bulgarian paraglider pilot was killed and a 63-year-old British pilot was rescued after a paragliding accident near Rising Star Peak, overlooking the Yol area of Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.
The deceased has been identified as Maksim Valentinovich Gavrilichenko, a Bulgarian national, while the rescued pilot is Stephen Antony Purdie, a Britisher.
The deceased has been identified as Maxim Valentinovich Gavrilichenko. The other man, rescued, has been identified as Stephen Antony.
Police said Gavrilichenko arrived in India on October 7 on a tourist visa.
Superintendent of Police Kangra, Kulbhushan Verma said that the accident was reported between 3 pm and 3.30 pm on Sunday near Rising Star Peak in Dharamshala's Khanaira. According to preliminary information, strong winds are said to be the cause of the accident.
A rescue and recovery operation was launched by the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and other collaborating teams on Sunday at around 9 pm after receiving information. Special attention was paid to confirmation of the exact location of the incident site, communication arrangements, coordination among field teams and deployment of necessary resources during the operation, which was conducted in remote mountainous terrain.
Police said Gavrilichenko's body has been kept at the morgue of Zonal Hospital Dharamshala for postmortem examination. Police are completing the necessary legal formalities in the case. The exact causes of the accident will be confirmed after an investigation.
This accident has renewed concerns over flight safety amid changing weather conditions in the region, a popular destination for paragliding.
Earlier on Sunday, two other foreign paragliders from Austria and Poland were rescued after being stranded in the high-altitude Dhauladhar mountains. While the Austrian pilot remained stranded for four nights, the Polish pilot was stranded for two nights.