A 27-year-old Canadian paraglider, identified as Megan Elizabeth, died after crash-landing in the Dhauladhar mountains of Himachal Pradesh last week. The accident occurred shortly after she took off from the Bir-Billing paragliding site near Dharamshala, one of the world’s most popular locations for cross-country flying.
According to officials, Elizabeth launched her flight at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, October 18, but was forced to make an emergency landing due to either sudden weather changes or a technical fault in her glider. She deployed her reserve parachute before descending but reportedly hit rocks while landing at an altitude of 4,000 metres, sustaining fatal head injuries.
The Kangra district administration initiated an immediate search operation after being informed of the incident. A rescue team from the Billing Paragliding Association (BPA) conducted multiple helicopter sorties in the Dhauladhar range. BPA leader Rahul Singh was air-dropped near the crash site on Saturday evening, but low visibility and rugged terrain hindered his search efforts.
On Sunday morning, four additional BPA rescuers were deployed and successfully located Elizabeth’s body. “She used her reserve glider but was likely flying too low when she hit the rocks,” said BPA founder-director Suresh Thakur. The team carried her body down a steep 1,000-metre stretch before it was airlifted to Kangra for a post-mortem examination.
In accordance with her wishes, Elizabeth was cremated in Bir on Tuesday, following Hindu rituals.
Two foreign pilots, Russian national Nikita Vasiltsov, 38, and Austrian pilot Jakob Krammer, were rescued from high-altitude regions in Kangra and Kullu districts on Monday. Vasiltsov crash-landed near the Patalsu peak in the Pir Panjal range, around 70 kilometres from his takeoff point, at an elevation of about 4,000 metres.
October attracts hundreds of solo paragliders to Bir-Billing, known globally for ideal weather conditions and scenic flight routes. However, the site has also witnessed rising safety concerns. Over the past decade, more than a dozen solo paragliders, most of them foreign nationals, have died in accidents from this location, including six fatalities in the last three years.
