Paraglider Kevin Philipp nearly fell to his death when he attempted to perform an “acro-paragliding” trick in Spain and his parachute didn’t open.
The the posted the video on both Instagram and YouTube, noting that “strong turbulence went wrong” and his break line got stuck.
Acro-paragliding is already considered the “most extreme form of paragliding” which is essentially performing fancy acrobatic tricks, like flips, in the air, according to Rise Paragliding.
While Philipp said that he can “can safely train this kind of sport” with the help of “2-3 rescue parachutes and a lot of height,” this trick in the sky above Organya did not go as planned.
He explained that he fell into one of the lines and his falling speed increased because of the “twisting wing,” which caused the near-death incident.
“This occasion is quite unlucky and rare,” he added.
Philipp said his “very last chance” was to open his rescue package after struggling, estimating that he only had one more second left to open the emergency parachute and figure out a way to safely land.
“This was not the day to die,” he wrote.
The video currently has over 93,000 views on YouTube and over 2,500 Instagram comments, with many commenters equating his survival chances to winning the lottery and shocked he lived to tell the tale.
“Probably the most hardcore fail ever recorded and survived,” one person wrote.
“Scratch another of your nine lives,” a second person commented.
According to Philipp, this is simply something he has to be prepared for every time he takes to the skies. And he’s wasting no time getting back out there, posting another video of his paragliding adventures on Tuesday.
“In acro-paragliding we face a lot of tries and errors in learning the tricks,” he said. “Fly high, land safe.”
