Chinese Paraglider Survives Extreme Temperature and Oxygen Deprivation in Updraft

A Chinese paraglider was swept up into the clouds to an altitude of 8,598 meters (28,200 feet), where temperatures can plunge to minus 40 degrees Celsius and oxygen levels become critically low, The South China Morning Post reports. The paraglider, Peng Yuxiang, remained airborne for over an hour before he was able to land.

According to Yuxiang, he had been training at an altitude of 3,000 meters that day and did not intend to make a full flight, but was caught in an updraft. The paraglider said he experienced severe oxygen deprivation and suffered frostbite on his face and fingers.

Following the incident, local authorities banned Yuxiang from flying for six months because he had not registered his flight in advance. The pilot who shared a video of the event without permission received the same punishment.

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Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or in a cocoon-like 'pod' suspended below a fabric wing. Wing shape is maintained by the suspension lines, the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing, and the aerodynamic forces of the air flowing over the outside. Despite not using an engine, paraglider flights can last many hours and cover many hundreds of kilometres, though flights of one to five hours and covering some tens of kilometres are more the norm. By skillful exploitation of sources of lift, the pilot may gain height, often climbing to altitudes of a few thousand metres.