Leisure accident
It was a tandem flight: two people wanted to take off from the Breithorn together and slowly glide down into the depths with their paragliders. The accident happened right at takeoff.
The accident happened during takeoff. (Archive photo) Photo: Katrin Requadt/dpa
Two people died in a paragliding accident near Zermatt in Switzerland. They wanted to take off from the Breithorn in the canton of Valais and float down into the depths with a paraglider. According to police, the two got into difficulties during takeoff and fell several hundred meters. The accident happened on Wednesday for reasons that are still unclear.
The Breithorn has a mountain ridge with several peaks and is more than 4,000 meters high at its highest point. Someone had observed the accident and alerted the rescue service. The two bodies were recovered. The police did not want to say where the victims came from before formal identification. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation.
Paragliders always take off from a mountain. The paraglider is spread out on the ground behind them. The pilot is connected to the paraglider by lines up to nine meters long. In a tandem flight, a second person is strapped in front of the pilot. Both run downhill and the pilot pulls on the lines so that the paraglider rises and fills with air.
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