Sightseeing Plane Cuts Womans Paragliding Lines

Do you assume you’d survive if a sightseeing aircraft cut your paragliding strains mid-air while you have been floating 1000’s of ft above the mountains? I’d say your odds have been extremely dangerous.

Amazingly, though, this 44-year-old lady not only survived, but she suffered only cuts and bruises after a aircraft flew instantly at her — lacking her head by a few ft at most — while she was gliding over Schmittenhöhe mountain in northern Austria Saturday.

Her title is Sabrina, and she didn’t panic after the near-death expertise. She fought and fought to get her emergency chute open as she spiraled toward the earth below.

The footage is superb:

A paraglider survived after being struck mid-air by a Cessna on her birthday.

The collision utterly destroyed her paraglider, but apart from a few bumps and bruises, she walked away without severe accidents.

The 44-year-old lady had taken off from Schmittenhöhe mountain in… pic.twitter.com/eF382GybKU

— Turbine Traveller (@Turbinetraveler) May 24, 2026

A paraglider survived after being struck mid-air by a Cessna on her birthday.

The collision utterly destroyed her paraglider, but apart from a few bumps and bruises, she walked away without severe accidents.

The 44-year-old lady had taken off from Schmittenhöhe mountain in Zell am See, Austria, while a 28-year-old pilot was conducting a scenic flight over the Alps in a Cessna C182 when the accident occurred close to the Pinzgauer Hütte.

She later posted the terrifying footage on Instagram with the caption: “Happy 2nd Birthday to me.”

📹: sab_thi

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Incredibly, Sabrina managed to land safely and even laughed after her ordeal. She posted to Instagram about her brush with nearly sure death (translated from German by Google):

“The day a Cessna 172 knocks you out of the sky while you’re paragliding…” the Upper Austrian lady writes on Instagram… “I still can’t quite believe that I’m sitting here typing this and that, apart from a few nasty bruises and contusions all over, nothing really happened.”

And certainly: No one was injured in the collision between a paraglider and a small aircraft on Saturday in Piesendorf (Pinzgau). According to police, the 44-year-old paraglider pilot from Upper Austria launched from the Schmittenhöhe mountain in direction of Piesendorf. At 1:15 p.m., while performing a minor maneuver above the Pinzgauer Hütte mountain hut, she collided with a Cessna piloted by a 28-year-old man from Tyrol. The lady was ready to deploy her reserve parachute and land safely.

I’ve been parachuting a couple of occasions, and let me let you know, there’s a purpose it may be terrifying: the initial drop can take your breath away. When you finally pull the chute, it’s really fairly peaceable — you just float in the sky, wanting down on the huge earth below, feeling such as you’re in heaven.

That is, unless a aircraft barrels in out of the sky and misses your skull by a hair’s breadth. I’m glad I’ve crossed off parachuting on my bucket record, because now I can say I’ve completed it and don’t need to do it again. Paragliding is a bit different from parachuting, of course — instead of dropping out of an airplane, you run off a mountain or cliff and immediately (hopefully) start floating. Either manner, I’ll go away it to the professionals.

That was one heck of a birthday shock for Sabrina, though. Many completely happy returns, and severe applause for your staying so calm in what must have been an unbelievably demanding second.

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