A nausea-inducing video captured a small plane colliding with a paraglider over the Austrian Alps, nearly ripping her out of the sky.
The video, posted to Instagram by Sabrina, username @sab-thi, begins with the paraglider enjoying a clear, beautiful Saturday soaring over the Piesendorf area of Salzburg. According to Salzburg State Police, the pilot of a Cessna 172 had the same idea, taking in the sights on a scenic flight when he struck her. The pilot, 28, claims he was unable to avoid colliding with the paraglider.
A woman paragliding over the Austrian Alps survived a terrifying midair collision after a small plane sliced through the paraglider’s canopy, sending her spinning out of control. pic.twitter.com/4M5L8qVkjO
— CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil (@CBSEveningNews) May 25, 2026
Miraculously, both the pilot and the paraglider escaped the encounter with minor injuries. After making an emergency landing, the paraglider was airlifted by a police helicopter.
“The propeller of the motor plane severely damaged the paraglider, prompting the experienced paraglider to deploy her reserve parachute,” police said.
The Plane Collision Somehow Only Left the Paraglider With Some ‘Nasty Bruises’
Experienced, she clearly is. As the video shows, her serene glide over an Alpine ridgeline was interrupted by the buzz of a plane engine. Seemingly out of nowhere, a small plane appears and slashes through her sail, missing her head by mere feet.
Her sail completely shredded, the paraglider begins to fall from the sky. Before she loses much altitude, however, she deploys her emergency parachute and begins a smooth descent.
It’s impossible to hear what she’s saying over the wind, but given the context, plus the frustrated groans, it’s probably safe to assume some words were said.
After freeing her legs from the zipped pod attached to her harness, she lands safely in a grassy field and begins to remove her gear.
“I actually still can’t believe that I’m sitting here typing this,” she wrote in a translated Instagram caption, adding that she escaped with nothing more than “a few nasty bruises.”
The plane collision occurred on May 23, on what was apparently the paraglider’s birthday.
The post ‘Can’t Believe That I’m Sitting Here’: Paraglider Nearly Falls to Her Death After Plane Hits Her in Wild Video appeared first on VICE.
