A woman paragliding above the Austrian Alps has survived a terrifying midair collision after a light aircraft flew through her canopy, sending her plummeting towards the ground.
The footage begins with the woman drifting peacefully above the Austrian mountains, with the hum of an aircraft in the distance. Moments later, a small white plane suddenly appears and slices through her paraglider canopy, passing just metres above her.
The woman is sent into a violent spiral, falling towards the earth, before she manages to release her emergency parachute, which slows her fall, all while the shreds of her original canopy trail behind her still attached.
After the second parachute opens, her face drops out of view. As she goes down, she frees her feet from the harness and narrowly misses a shrub before landing on a patch of grass below.
The video ends with her hitting the ground hard and making a loud grunt.
“I actually still can’t believe that I’m sitting here typing this — and that, aside from a few nasty bruises and some general contusions, absolutely nothing happened,” Sabrina wrote in German alongside a video of the fall on her Instagram.
The 44-year-old woman, who has only been identified by her first name, launched her paraglider from the Schmittenhöhe mountain in Austria on Saturday when she was struck by a small plane, according to the Salzburg State Police, the Austrian newspaper, Kronen Zeitung, reported.
The aircraft’s 28-year-old pilot told police he was unable to take evasive action before the impact.
“The propeller of the motor plane severely damaged the paraglider, prompting the experienced paraglider to deploy her reserve parachute,” police said.
“The woman from Upper Austria made a safe emergency landing on a forest road. She was then airlifted by police helicopter to Zell am See Airport. Both parties escaped injury.”