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Economic Times
3 days ago
- Climate
- Economic Times
Is it a plane or a satellite? No, it's a Chinese paraglider at 8000 m above earth, frozen with no oxygen and still surviving
TIL Creatives Chinese paraglider at 8000 m above earth Peng Yujiang, a seasoned Chinese paraglider, on May 24, 2025, found himself at the center of a harrowing and extraordinary survival story—one that has captivated China's adventure sports community and drawn comparisons to some of the most extreme feats in paragliding history. Peng, who has been paragliding since at least 2021 according to his WeChat posts, launched from the Qilian Mountains in northwestern China, a region known for its government-backed paragliding base and as host of the Coupe Icare China. What was intended as a routine ground-based training session quickly turned perilous. About 20 minutes after takeoff, Peng was caught in a rare and dangerous meteorological phenomenon known as 'cloud suck'—a powerful updraft within a cumulonimbus cloud that can rapidly pull gliders thousands of meters upward. Data from Peng's GPS tracker, later shared on social media, revealed he was lifted to a staggering altitude of 8,598 meters (28,200 feet)—just shy of the cruising altitude of commercial jetliners and perilously close to the world record for unassisted paragliding altitude. The ascent rate peaked at 9.7 meters per second (35 km/h), and temperatures plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Footage from Peng's own camera shows him coated in ice, without supplemental oxygen, struggling to communicate via radio as his hands such altitudes, oxygen levels are dangerously low and the risk of hypoxia, frostbite, and unconsciousness is extreme. Remarkably, Peng managed to stay conscious and maintain control for over an hour, eventually landing safely 33 kilometers from his launch site. 'I felt the lack of oxygen. My hands were frozen outside. I kept trying to talk on the radio,' Peng recounted in a Douyin video posted after his flight. His ordeal echoes that of German paraglider Ewa Wiśnierska, who survived a similar incident in 2007 after being lifted to 9,946 meters in Australia and losing consciousness for nearly 40 minutes. Both stories highlight the unpredictable dangers of high-altitude paragliding. Following the incident, the Aero Sports Association of Gansu Province confirmed Peng's flight was not officially approved. Peng claimed he was conducting ground training when the winds unexpectedly lifted him. The association classified the event as an accident rather than illegal flying, but suspended Peng's flying privileges for six months pending who holds a valid paragliding license and has logged multiple high-altitude flights in the region, has since avoided media attention, asking the public to refrain from amplifying the incident. His Douyin account has been set to private, and his flight record removed from XContest, a global paragliding Chinese regulations, all paragliding flights require prior approval and are prohibited in poor weather conditions. The ongoing investigation underscores the risks and regulatory challenges facing China's growing adventure sports scene.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Climate
- Time of India
Is it a plane or a satellite? No, it's a Chinese paraglider at 8000 m above earth, frozen with no oxygen and still surviving
Live Events Aftermath and Investigation (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Peng Yujiang, a seasoned Chinese paraglider, on May 24, 2025, found himself at the center of a harrowing and extraordinary survival story—one that has captivated China's adventure sports community and drawn comparisons to some of the most extreme feats in paragliding who has been paragliding since at least 2021 according to his WeChat posts, launched from the Qilian Mountains in northwestern China, a region known for its government-backed paragliding base and as host of the Coupe Icare China. What was intended as a routine ground-based training session quickly turned perilous. About 20 minutes after takeoff, Peng was caught in a rare and dangerous meteorological phenomenon known as 'cloud suck'—a powerful updraft within a cumulonimbus cloud that can rapidly pull gliders thousands of meters from Peng's GPS tracker, later shared on social media, revealed he was lifted to a staggering altitude of 8,598 meters (28,200 feet)—just shy of the cruising altitude of commercial jetliners and perilously close to the world record for unassisted paragliding altitude. The ascent rate peaked at 9.7 meters per second (35 km/h), and temperatures plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Footage from Peng's own camera shows him coated in ice, without supplemental oxygen, struggling to communicate via radio as his hands such altitudes, oxygen levels are dangerously low and the risk of hypoxia, frostbite, and unconsciousness is extreme. Remarkably, Peng managed to stay conscious and maintain control for over an hour, eventually landing safely 33 kilometers from his launch site. 'I felt the lack of oxygen. My hands were frozen outside. I kept trying to talk on the radio,' Peng recounted in a Douyin video posted after his ordeal echoes that of German paraglider Ewa Wiśnierska , who survived a similar incident in 2007 after being lifted to 9,946 meters in Australia and losing consciousness for nearly 40 minutes. Both stories highlight the unpredictable dangers of high-altitude paragliding Following the incident, the Aero Sports Association of Gansu Province confirmed Peng's flight was not officially approved. Peng claimed he was conducting ground training when the winds unexpectedly lifted him. The association classified the event as an accident rather than illegal flying, but suspended Peng's flying privileges for six months pending who holds a valid paragliding license and has logged multiple high-altitude flights in the region, has since avoided media attention, asking the public to refrain from amplifying the incident. His Douyin account has been set to private, and his flight record removed from XContest, a global paragliding Chinese regulations , all paragliding flights require prior approval and are prohibited in poor weather conditions. The ongoing investigation underscores the risks and regulatory challenges facing China's growing adventure sports scene.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Chinese paraglider almost equals world record at 28,000 feet — by accident
HONG KONG — The sky was apparently not the limit for a Chinese paraglider who climbed to a near record-breaking altitude of more than 28,000 feet Wednesday. The only problem? He hadn't even intended to fly. In what acrophobes — those with a fear of heights — could only imagine in their worst nightmares, 55-year-old Peng Yujian was just conducting a routine equipment test in the northern province of Gansu when a powerful updraft lifted him off the ground. 'I had just bought a secondhand paragliding harness and wanted to test it. So I was conducting ground parachute shaking,' Peng told state-run broadcaster CCTV News on Wednesday. 'The wind suddenly picked up and lifted me into the air.' 'I tried to land as soon as possible, but I failed,' he added, explaining that he was then carried even higher by a wind and ended up trapped in the cloud system, ascending as high as 5 miles above the ground to heights usually the preserve of commercial airliners. According to a statement from the Aero Sports Association of Gansu Province, Peng is a licensed paraglider with two years of experience that appeared to come in handy on the video captured by a camera attached to his equipment. NBC News could not independently verify the footage, released by CCTV, which showed Peng's face and gear coated in ice as he said: 'I can't get out now. I'm totally lost.' Peng said he started to panic when he reached the cloud base. 'Everything ahead [was] a vast expanse of whiteness,' he told CCTV, adding that he had no directional awareness without a compass. Even with a compass, it would have been too difficult to maintain direction because of poor visibility inside the clouds, Peng said. 'I thought I was flying straight, but in fact, I kept spinning around.' Peng said the scariest moment of his ordeal was when his parachute plunged headfirst toward the earth. But he managed to right himself before emerging from the cloud system heading northeast. 'I looked around and thought: 'Ah, I'm saved this time!' he said. In the Aero Sports Association statement, Peng, who was not wearing an oxygen mask, said that he gasped for air after landing and that he might have lost consciousness for about three minutes due to hypoxia and low temperatures. Peng's adventure almost saw him break the world record, itself also set accidentally in 2007 when a German paraglider was encased in ice after being sucked into a tornadolike thunderstorm in Australia and carried to a height greater than Mount Everest. Along with another pilot who published the video 'without permission,' Peng was initially handed a six-month flight suspension, Chinese air sports authorities said. Under China's national paragliding regulations, pilots are required to have a valid license issued by the Aero Sports Federation of China, and a flight plan must be approved before any activity. Individuals who violate the rules are penalized based on the seriousness of the incident. But the ban sparked a backlash on Chinese social media. 'He barely made it out alive. It's not like he wanted to fly that high,' one user wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. While local media reported that the association withdrew the statement the same day, it is unclear whether Peng's suspension is still in place. Peng said the swelling in his body has 'gone down a lot,' but that his hands and face still felt numb. 'My fear hasn't completely faded,' Peng told CCTV News. 'I still feel uneasy when I think about it now.' He said he decided to 'take a break' from flying for the moment. This article was originally published on
