Himachal Pradesh: The tourism department has sought a report from Baijnath authorities, who control paragliding activities in Bir-Billing, on the death of a Belgian paraglider in a mid-air collision with another paraglider yesterday. District tourism officer Vinay Dhiman told the Tribune that it seems that some protocols for paragliding in Bir-Billing were violated, leading to the fatal accident. The Belgian paraglider died in a mid-air collision with another paraglider. “Usually, paragliders have to maintain a time gap while flying from Billing to avoid such accidents. We have sought a report from local authorities to find out if the protocols were violated,” he said. According to preliminary investigation, Russian paraglider Alexey (50) died of a heart attack in Bir-Billing, sources said. He was staying in Bir with some of his friends. On Monday night, he went to sleep in his room but did not wake up in the morning.

People informed the police about his death. On receiving the information, the police reached the spot and took the body of the Russian paraglider into custody and sent it for post-mortem. Many foreign paragliders have reached Bir-Billing to participate in the Paragliding World Cup to be held from November 2. The death of the Belgian paraglider three days before the start of the World Cup has once again highlighted concerns about the safety of paragliders in Bir-Billing. A helicopter equipped with a winch was mandatory to carry out rescue operations to rescue paragliders stranded in high mountains. However, no helicopter was available on the spot except on the days of the World Cup in Bir-Billing. Foreign paragliders visiting Bir-Billing get insurance cover for accidents. Whenever a foreign paraglider gets stranded in the mountains after an accident, the concerned officials in Baijnath contact his insurance company. The committee monitoring paragliding in Bir-Billing is headed by SDM Baijnath. It takes about three to four hours to contact the foreign insurance company. After getting the green signal from the insurance company, a helicopter company is contacted to carry out rescue operations in the mountains. The hired helicopter takes two to three hours to reach Bir-Billing for the rescue operation. Sources said that since rescue operations cannot be carried out at night, it usually takes more than 24 hours to rescue a stranded paraglider. The maximum rescue time in Europe was about 40 minutes.