Watch: Paraglider rescued after unplanned water landing

By Barney Riley via SWNS

This is the moment a paraglider was rescued after his parachute became tangled and forced him to land on water.

Aaron Hall, 23, lost control after his parachute tangled at 3281 feet and he had to descend into the sea before being rescued by a boat.

He took to the skies above Ölüdeniz, in south-eastern Turkey in April 2022 after launching himself from Babadağ mountain, which is renowned for hosting many of the world's greatest paragliders.

Aaron, who's from the Isle of Wight, was taking part in a four-day course dubbed 'Simulation d'incident en vol.'

The course is designed and delivered by top paraglider pilots to 'build up confidence and control' of the paraglider in 'progressively more unstable conditions.'

Initially, Aaron's flight was going swimmingly, but he would soon end up swimming after he attempted a 'full-frontal collapse' manoeuvre.

Using a 360-degree action camera, the incident is captured from all angles revealing what went wrong.

Aaron is seen pulling on the cords as the parachute folds over and gets tangled within itself forcing the first stages of the unplanned descent.

He fights the error and attempts to unfurl the parachute with some success. It opens back up, but one side is tucked underneath one of the straps.

Unable to get the edge of the chute untucked, the main stage of the descent starts as he continues to yank at the cord in a series of fruitless attempts to release the chute fully.

Eventually, after a somewhat spiralling descent, the chute becomes fully unfurled but by this point, Aaron is unable to regain altitude to continue paragliding.

He said: "During the flight, I was asked by my instructor via a radio to induce a 'Frontal Collapse' of the wing.

"This is done by pulling hard on the front (A-lines) of the canopy until it folds underneath and causes a deflation.

"The manoeuvre, in most cases, is very mundane and shouldn't cause a reaction as bad as the video shows.

"However, a lapse in my concentration meant that when inducing the collapse only the inner A-lines were pulled.

"This caused the outer section of the canopy to continue flying while the inner section deflated, resulting in a rather harsh collapse where both wing tips became tangled together.

"The cascade of events that followed was a series of twists and cravattes that were difficult to control and stubborn to expel.

"Eventually, after using a combination of strong pumps on both brake lines and a little bit of untangling the lines by hand both the cravatte were clear."

Paragliding website Flybubble.com described a cravatte as 'a nasty kind of collapse, where the fabric of the wingtip becomes trapped in the lines.'

Aaron told SWNS that even though this was a course designed to help pilots navigate difficult situations, this was his first experience with something going wrong while at the helm during his three years of experience paragliding.

He added: "The number one rule of aviation is to 'Always fly the aircraft,' this means that regardless of what is happening you must remain calm and continue to fly your safest course, so that's what I did.

"I was very lucky to have the voice of Jockey Sanderson - a world-renowned paragliding legend, talking me through the whole process from the safety boat and he assured me that I was going to be okay.

"Once I'd made it back to the beach I was finally able to process how it made me feel.

"It's safe to say I was more cautious the following day when trying the same manoeuvres again."

"This incident hasn't put me off the sport at all, I think if anything, it has ignited a fire within me to take every opportunity to better myself to really understand the wing, how to control it, and even master it."