In 13 seconds, death came crashing on Purosttam Timsina, 22, who was
flying the paraglider that plummeted with a tourist in Kalimpong on
Saturday.
A video shot by the tourist, Gaurav Chaudhury, 35, from
Patna, has cleared the air on the sequence of events that led to the
crash.
Chaudhury is nursing a fractured leg and hand but Timsina, a resident of Pokhara in Nepal, was not so lucky.
The
video, uploaded by a Facebook page, I Love Siliguri, is only 1.14
minutes long but has opened a can of worms suggesting negligence and
dismissing several claims made by the Kalimpong Paragliding Association.
To
start with, the video shows Timsina was not wearing a helmet, a clear
indication of negligence. The pilot died of head injuries when the
paraglider crashed onto a concrete rooftop.
The video also
suggests that the pilot was neither trying any stunt nor was there a
strong gust of wind as claimed by the Paragliding Association.
Forty seconds into the video, Chaudhury is seen screaming out of joy and the very next second, the paraglider snaps.
For 13 seconds, Timsina and Chaudhury are seen holding on to one chord of the paraglider, the other half having snapped.
During
the freefall, Chaudhury has a blank expression, while Timsina has
horror written all over his face as he holds on to the tourist with his
right hand and clings on to the other chord with the left hand.
Fifty-four
seconds into the video, the duo land on the concrete rooftop but the
camera captures the other half of the paraglider slowly drifting away in
the sky. This is a clear indication that the paraglider had snapped.
A
day after the accident, two eyewitnesses, Bipan Pradhan and Anish Saha,
had said they had seen the paraglider split into two midair.
Bipen
Tamang, the spokesman for the paragliding association, had, however,
said it was “impossible” for the paraglider to tear into two and said
the association were ready to “face any investigation”.
Told about
the video, Tamang told Metro on Tuesday: “I have not seen the video but
I did receive a call saying the footage is making the rounds in the
social media.”
“I was told that the carabineer (a specialised type
of shackle/metal loop which is used in mountaineering) seems to have
snapped. It is impossible for the paragliding sail to disintegrate into
two halves just like that,” said Tamang.
On the day of the
accident, Tamang had said that the pilot was trying to control the
paraglider after a strong wind dragged it away from the landing spot
when the sail brushed against a tree before it plunged 40ft down. The
video, however, shows nothing like that.
Told that the pilot was
not wearing the mandatory helmet, Tamang said: “The pilot is the one who
takes the ride and he should have worn it. What can we say now?”
Earlier,
the association official had said: “The pilots conduct thorough checks
before every flight. Since the pilot’s life is also at stake, there is
no question of negligence. We immediately stop the flight if the pilot
reports a complaint.”
The Telegraph
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