Bir mishap: Woman paragliding pilot and her husband were regular fliers

Ravinder Sood

Palampur, April 8

The body of solo paragliding pilot Ritu Chopra (54), who was killed in a paragliding mishap yesterday, was handed over to his family members today after post-mortem examination at civil hospital, Baijnath.

8 pilots, tourists killed in one year

• In the past one year, eight paragliding pilots and tourists have lost their lives in different paragliding mishaps in Bir Billing
• An Army jawan and a tourist were killed in Billing
• Last year, an Army jawan from Mizoram was killed when his paraglider crash-landed near Billing. He was flying solo when the tragedy occurred
• Earlier, a Ghaziabad tourist and his helper were killed while taking off from Billing. In another mishap, a resident of Nagrota Bagwan was killed when the co-pilot failed to fasten safety belts
• In February 2020, a 24-year-old paraglider Akshya and co-pilot Shyam Lal were killed

Information gathered revealed that both Ritu Chopra and her husband Wing Commander (Retd) Ashutosh Chandera flew from Billing at 11 am in separate gliders. Ritu was to land at Chogan but she lost the way because of uncontrolled turbulence and the glider crashed in Dhauladhar hills near Sansal village.

Her husband Ashutosh was following her in the sky and noticed that Ritu had lost the route. He also witnessed that her glider crashed within a few minutes. Wing Commander Ashutosh also managed to land his glider at the site of the crash within a few minutes. He found Ritu in critical condition with multiple injuries. He immediately contacted his Air Force colleague who arranged a helicopter which reached the crash site within half an hour. She was taken to Baijnath Civil hospital where she was declared brought dead.

Ashutosh Chander and his wife Ritu were regular fliers in the Billing valley. Though permanent residents of Gautam Budh Nagar, they had taken a house on rent here for the past few years as both were very fond of adventure sport paragliding. Ritu was an experienced pilot but because of bad weather she could not save her life.

Billing in Kangra district is ranked among the top 10 paragliding sites in the world. The place has been regularly hosting the prestigious Paragliding World Cup. But as rules governing the sport are normally overlooked, it has started courting controversies. In the absence of proper checks from the state tourism department, the number of mishaps have gone up in the past few years.

In the past one year eight paragliding pilots and tourists have lost their lives in different paragliding mishaps in Bir Billing. Earlier, an Army jawan and a tourist were killed while paragliding in Billing.

Last year an Army jawan from Mizoram was killed when his paraglider crash-landed near Billing. He was flying solo when the tragedy occurred. He had no knowledge of the topography of Dhauladhar ranges which led to the mishap.

In another mishap, a Ghaziabad tourist and his helper were killed while taking off from Billing. In another mishap, a resident of Nagrota Bagwan was killed when the co-pilot failed to tighten safety belts. In February 2020, a 24-year-old paraglider Akshya and co-pilot Shyam Lal were killed. Both had taken off from Billing and were untrained.

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