Unintentional altitude record?

[ditch]

Training for the World Paraglider Championships two people on separate gliders, were sucked upwards by a storm, one of them to a height of nearly 10,00 metres, higher than Mt Everest which is near cruising height for a passenger jet!


A German paraglider survived lightning, pounding hail, minus 40-degree temperatures and oxygen deprivation after a storm system sucked her to an altitude higher than Mount Everest.

And she landed, frostbitten but alive. The second person's body was found some distance from the take off area.

"[Wisnierska] flew underneath a storm cloud and got sucked up to 30,000 feet. She was unconscious for about half an hour. She regained consciousness at 20,000 feet and then flew down and landed safely.

"She was covered in ice. She suffered from severe frostbite. The temperature at that altitude was about minus 50 degrees. It's higher than Mount Everest."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/dead-luck-ewas-flight-of-fury/2007/02/16/1171405421626.html

Next time I'd think she'll be checking the weather report before taking off.

[tke711]

Wow, she's very, very lucky to be alive.

[Steve]

That - is some scary shiznit! I'd be going to church about 3 times a day if something like that happened to me, just to say "Thanks!".

Too bad she didn't have a helmet cam, though......

[ditch]

Lucky lady alright. I hope she buys that glider something nice for Xmas.

[arioso]

t is difficult to comprehend how she survived, let alone how she landed her glider and answered her phone. Truly amazing.

[ethics]

What's the evidence for this?

[Kangaroo]

I call Bullshit. You don't just 'pass out' when deprived of oxygen, you die . . . in about 15~30 maximum minutes at that altitude. Next, temperatures of -50° should result in death for a normally dressed person in about 15 minutes.

[arioso]

What's the evidence for this?
According to the newspaper report, the glider had an onboard tracking device that recorded altitude and ascent/descent timings. If the glider did not scale to such a high altitude, other explanations are:

the tracking device is/was faulty
the altitudes were reported inaccurately.

[ethics]

Arioso, I think those are two good conclusions and based on the lack of anything other than the glider was carrying herself, I can't take this story at its value currently.

Kangaroo also brings up some excellent points on the limits of human animal being that high for so much time.

[ditch]

When she landed she was frostbitten and there was ice on parts of the glider. No one saw her up there of course but the altitude meter and her condition indicated that the story has reported things accurately. Everest has been climbed without oxygen if I recall correctly so surviving at that altitude is possible.

[ethics]

No one climbed Everest that fast, ever.

[ditch]

No and there is no claim that anyone did. The height of Everest was similar to the height the glider rose to, or thereabouts. The altitude is the thing not the speed of the ascent. She did pass out which, according to those in the know, helped her to survive because of the slow respiratory rate her body would have been operating at.

It's an amazing story and being sceptical is not surprising. You're not the only one.

[ditch]

What surprises me as much, or more, is that her glider wasn't badly damaged by the hail. Stones of the size she was hit with should have been enough to shred the fabric.

[ethics]

There's too many hurdles, legitimately big ones, that she passed through without being 'touched'. I smell fakery--deliberate or not.

[drntdrtydg]

t is difficult to comprehend how she survived, let alone how she landed her glider and answered her phone. Truly amazing.

the ice might have actually provided a buffer from the more drastic temperature extremes and she might a have passed out and gone into a mild form of "suspended animation" being as cold as she was, the pressure and temperature differences could have had some strange kind of "reverse benz" effect on her capilaries wich were unable to fully expand as the ice encasing her kept her pressurised to a degree inside encapsulation.

...or the altimeter was messed up.:whistle:

[ditch]

There is sufficient evidence to support the story. Her physical condition including frostbite, ice which was still on the glider, the fact that she passed out due to lack of oxygen and the altitude meter which, judging form the assessment made of it, was working accurately. The altitude would not have killed her as she spent insufficient time at a dangerous height for that to happen. Another para glider died in this same storm after being taken to similar heights but was not so fortunate.

There is no evidence to support the case for her not having gone through this ordeal as it is outlined in the article. It pays to have a healthy amount of scepticism, but not enough to suspend belief of an event simply because it was amazing and unprecedented.

[arioso]

I think it is worth exploring other explanations if only to discount them. In this case, I am inclined to believe that it really did happen.

[ethics]

1. Lack of O2 at that altitude for that amount of time
2. Freezing temps at that altitude for that amount of time
3. Lack of any other evidence than what ever she carried with her
4. The size of hail raining down on her and her glider

All make me skeptical.

Ice can accumulate without reaching the heights her gauge showed, Ditch.

[Lovehound]

I find the story more believable than not.

You would be surprised how fast the up and down currents blow in thunderstorms. I've had some exposure to this concept during my flight training. You could easily encounter several thousand feet per minute up or down drafts (or more!). It's quite possible that she went up and came back down all within mere minutes, even to 30,000 feet.

By the way, those hail stones are doing the same thing, up and down, up and down, getting bigger every trip. Eventually they get too heavy and the whole cell collapses, everything falling out the bottom. My point is that the hailstones and paraglider would have been subject to the same up and down drafts so they wouldn't have as much differential speed as you might imagine.

[ethics]

I can argue about it all day, LH, to me it's not that much of importance. If she was wrong, the truth will surface some time. If it was factual, then by all means, that's awesome.

[Lovehound]

It's not much of an argument since I made only one comment.

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. Oops, two comments now.