Nevertheless, I strapped into my harness and readied my risers as 3 men held my chute off the ground behind me. It would be a front-launch-- I would simply run forward with all my might as the glider swung off the ground behind me and above my head. "3, 2, 1," I shouted, and then sprinted forward as hard I could. I could feel the tug of the glider's wind resistance in the straps as they rubbed along my forarms. The ground became steeper and steeper; first 5 degrees, then 15, then abruptly 45 degrees of harrowing steepness. "At this point, there's no bailing out," I told myself as I was seemingly hurtling towards a wall of trees, rocks, and bushes below. Then, like magic, the chute caught wind and lifted me off the moist grass. My legs swung and scraped the top of the bushes as the ground dropped away from me. I was off!
My anxiety quickly turned to exhilaration as the cool wind whipped my hair back and the lush green mountainous terrain spread out below me until its undulating mass poured down into the South Sea far below. This moment after launch is for pilots like jumping out of bed on Christmas morning is for 8-year-olds. The sky is yours; the clouds, mountain ridges, and the shimmering reflections of light against faraway rivers are your playground to explore and reign over.
I bore right to skirt the side of the ridge. I felt the levitating effects of the updraft of wind as it passed over the ridge. This ridge-lift supported me as I made for the saddle which would allow me access to a lower ridgeline which would carry me to my riverside landing zone. To my surprise, I received enough lift to blast over the taller area of the mountain and proceeded directly along the side of my target ridge, waiting for the chance to get completely on top of it.
Watching the myriad pine trees and exposed rock faces go by below and beside me--sometimes at merely 15-20 meters--is an experience which I think will never grow old. Given that I had flown this same ridge earlier in the day, I allowed myself to grow quite comfortable as I gazed over the forest below me and the farm basin far below to my left. The graceful, curving roofs of the old Korean homes were barely more than dots as they peeked out from the woods in the foothills. The jagged mountaintops of Jirisan, the tallest mountain range in the mainland of South Korea, stretched north to south on the opposite side of the basin and rose far above my flight altitude.
My state of tranquility became interrupted as I rounded a bend just before the location where I planned to cruise directly on top of my ridge. A fog bank, quick-moving and ghostly white, enveloped me in its damp fingers. My canopy became drenched and heavy as the wind which had lifted me over a dozen ridgelines dropped away. I began to sink at half again my previous rate.
My mind raced through the possibilities. I could not now gain enough altitude to mount the ridge as I previously planned. Skirting closer to the ridge to try to gain more ridgelift seemed unwise as that would reduce my ability, if the lift was not powerful, to get over the lateral sub-ridges which branched out perpendicularly to my flight trajectory. I could continue forward and try to make it to the river and my white, sandy LZ or I could bail out to the left, try to clear the spiky forest, and land in the farm basin. I decided, in retrospect poorly, that I would try to make the LZ. The trees passed closer and closer below me with each new ridge I crossed. A palpable fear clutched me as I realized I was sinking even faster and that I would not be able to reach the river. As I watched a pine tree cross 5 meters below me, I knew that if I did not bank towards the farmlands, I would never be able to make it out of the forest. A sense of panic electrified my blood as I leaned into a looping left bank. I could feel my pulse pounding in my fingers as they clutched my brake handles. An attempt to raise my team members by radio and inform them of my dire situation yielded nothing but static, likely due to the inclement weather, complex terrain, and long flight distance on this particular launch.
I was all alone. Before me, there was moutainous pine forest sloping down to a village in the foothills. Beyond that, the relative safety of the flat farms. I bore straight, my path placing me on a beeline over the town to safety--if I could make it.
My heart sank when I realized I would not.I was sinking hard, now at 50 meters above the town. I knew I had to find a landing zone in the village. My eyes scanned over narrow roads, a pear orchard, and finally, a parking lot. That would be my best bet. But as I prepared to judge the course necessary to facilitate such a landing, I caught glimpse of a pilot's bane, directly in my path: telephone wires. They excluded all possibility of a parking lot landing. Panic was overpowering now as I switched into basic survival mode. I swung left at 20 meters, trying to set up a course for a narrow road between the farmhouses. Swiftly I descended towards a parked SUV. As I bore in on the shiny black body, A powerful feeling coursed through me in an instint: I may die, right now. My instincts took over and I yanked my right brake as I swung my left leg over my right in a desperately sharp bank to avoid the car. I felt the harness tight against me from the force of the turn as my legs swung by 1 meter from the vehicle. I was now parallel to the road, but baring downhill and with way too much speed. The rough fabric of the brake levers pressed into my palms as I tugged them down as far as they would go; a full landing brake. It wasn't enough to stabilize my flight; I was swinging in from an as-yet unfinished right turn.
I smashed into the roadway on my right side, skidding along the roadway and bursting into a farm cart. The cart owner screamed in shock as fruits and vegetables flew through the air. My harness swung around so that I was facing back at my chute as it caught in a pear tree beside the road. I was nestled into the wreckage of the farm cart, on my back in my harness, when I came to a rest. The shrieks of the elderly farmer, the most terrifying I think I've ever heard, continued to wail on as a sense of relief washed over me like a smooth wave of cold water: I was alive. My helmeted head rose up when I glanced over at the cart owner. Her face, adorned with wire-rimmed glasses, was heavily tanned and weathered from decades of hard work in the fields. "Mian-hamnida," I weakly uttered, "I'm sorry," and let my head roll back down to rest against my harness.
As I lay there, mentally checking my body for damage, villagers ran up from all directions. I looked at my right hand--it was badly scraped from my slide across the road. I also felt a burning rash on the left side of my back and a deep soreness around my left hip. But nothing seemed life-threatening. The villagers were talking wildly amongst themselves as they came to help me out of my equipment. I could hear the woman telling her story of the events to the others as they sat her down on a nearby bench. She held her hand over her heart and breathed deeply when she wasn't speaking. Oddly, I felt more worried about her than about myself. I told the bystanders that I was unharmed, stood up on my own, and walked over to assure that the woman was okay. When I apoligized to her she didn't seem to hear. On my second attempt she looked up at me and held my hands in hers. "I'm sorry, too," she said.
A middle-aged man appeared and greeted me in English. He told me that something like this had never happened in their village before, and that I was a very lucky man. He helped me disentangle my chute from the pear tree, radioed in my location once we were able to raise some help, and bid me farewell. I turned back to the old woman and related my harrowing story to her. Her eyes softened upon hearing the fear and panic in my voice as I recounted my desperate maneuvers, and she thanked me for telling her how I came to fall from the sky onto her farm cart. Our conversation was rudely interrupted as Another paraglider pilot came into view above us, obviously coming in for a crash landing. It was my club member Yang Dong Hwa, who launched after I did. She had more altitude than me, and was able to make it to the safety of the farmlands that I couldn't reach--barely.
Seeing this pilot made me realize that I had a responsibility to help the others who may be flying into danger. I quickly radioed to my friend Mik, who I knew was going to launch not long after I did. When I heard the loud whistle of the wind through the radio as his reply came, I knew it was too late to prevent his launch. I warned him about the sinkhole in the sky, which he later told me was a great help to him. He was unable to reach the landing zone either, but his early warning allowed him to make a more prepared crash-landing in the pine forest. It took him 45 minutes to cut himself out of the tree and hike to the village. But he was unharmed.
After exchanging information with the old farm lady, who just so happened to be nice enough to give me a cup of juice and a strange fruit while I was waiting for a vehicle pickup, the female pilot who had crashed appeared on the road and approached us. We discussed the bizarre weather conditions which had caused our crash-landings and enlisted the help the villagers to patch up my bleeding hand. Being incredibly kind, they helped wash, sanitize, and bandage it, and we hopped into a car to search for Mik, who had just radioed in that he had crashed as well. After a strange drive which included hurtling off-road through a dark orchard in his sedan and backing up hard into a tree, we were informed that Mik was found. The nice villager drove us to the LZ and we were reunited with the rest of the club. The drizzle had turned to rain, and we huddled under a gazebo while we waited for our last vehicle to arrive.
I discussed with Mik about the terrifying chain of events. We came to two conclusions. The first was that after launching, there wasn't anything we could have done to prevent a crash-landing. The conditions had rapidly deteriorated and were impossible to predict mid-flight. The second conclusion we made was that under conditions where we have any doubt about the safety of launching, we should use judgement and simply not launch. The Korean pilots seem to regard safety with a lot less concern that we are used to, and we should not allow ourselves to be peer-pressured into making a dangerous launch which could cost us our lives.
Moving forward, I have decided that I will continue to fly, and I'll continue to mountain bike, and all of the other dangerous things I do, but I'll do it with a lot more caution. As Mik says, if my thoughts begin with "I don't know, but..." when assessing a dangerous launch condition or technical downhill mountain bike section, it's a signal to end the debate and simply walk away. The exhilaration and ego-boost of an hour of fun pale in comparison to the magnitude of despair that such risky behaviors could impart on us and those who love us. That is why I took the time to painstakingly type this post despite the throbbing pain in my scraped right hand, reminding me of past mistakes. The moments when I knew I could not reach the farm and when I believed I would hit the SUV were amongst the most intensely terrifying in my entire life. I actually believed I would die. I'm tearfully grateful that not only did I live, but I escaped without serious injury.
This event, I'm sure, will save my life by forcing me to recognize the inherent risk involved in the activities I love. I truly grew older as a direct result of this event, and I'll always remember the day I fell not only from the sky, but also from a blinding naivete. Please take my words into consideration whenever you plan to undertake an action that could have repercussions you are incapable of predicting or of coping with. Thank you.
