The exact moment a hang glider and a paraglider collided in mid-air, hundred of metres above the ground, has been captured on video and has since gone viral.
The dramatic and heart-stopping scenes were caught on camera above the Australian Gold Coast hinterland, as another paraglider was capturing his own excursions on Saturday.
The clip shows a female paraglider making a sharp, left turn into the path of another hang glider, which is being manoeuvred by a male driver.
As soon as they touch the duo then begin to immediately plummet to the ground, as their parachutes are connected together.
The incident ended safely though when the hang glider deployed his emergency chute, moments before they collided with the ground. However, they were now stuck in the trees of the forest, and were left dangling above the floor, 20 metres in the air.
Perthnow.com reported that it took over two hours for the team of ten specially trained firefighters to cut the pair free, in what has been described as a “very tricky” rescue.
It has been stated that ropes and lines were used in order to get to the trapped pilots, and to then lower them down to terra firma.
Mark Gribble, a fire officer, told Perthnow, “They were about 100m down a very vertical cliff face. It was heavily wooded scrub with razor-sharp vines and they were hanging about 20m up in the canopy.”
Gribbel went on to add, “There were no injuries, apart from pride I’d suspect. They were very lucky.”
Chris Ballingall, a rescuer, added that the duo were calm and collected throughout the rescue. He stated, “They were talking us through the rescue and other hang gliders and paraglider were also assisting us. It was very tricky but a very good outcome.”
You can watch a video of the incident above.
