A 27-year-old woman tourist from Maharashtra’s Pune and an instructor died in a paragliding accident in North Goa, police said on Sunday, adding that the mishap took place when they crashed into a ravine.
The accident occurred at Keri village on Saturday evening, news agency PTI quoted an official as saying.
Shivani Dable, a resident of Pune, and her instructor, Sumal Nepali (26), a Nepalese national, crashed to death at Keri Plateau around 5 pm, the official said.
The official added that Shivani Dable had opted to paraglide with an adventure sports company operating illegally. As per the complaint, the paraglider plunged into a ravine soon after it took off from a cliff, killing the duo on the spot, the official said.
A case was registered at Mandrem police station against company owner Shekhar Raizada under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita for endangering human life.
Himachal Pradesh paragliding mishap
The incident comes a day after two tourists died in two separate paragliding accidents in Kangra and Kullu districts of Himachal Pradesh within a span of 24 hours.
The tourists who died in paragliding incidents in Himachal Pradesh were from Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, police said on Saturday.
Bhavsar Khushi from Gujarat’s Ahmedabad was on a tandem flight and fell to death during take-off on Saturday evening at the Indrunag paragliding site near Dharamshala, as per a PTI report. The pilot also fell with her and sustained injuries.
The pilot was sent to Tanda Medical College for treatment, the report quoted ASP Kangra Vir Bahadur.
In the other incident, a 28-year-old tourist from Tamil Nadu died and the pilot sustained serious injuries while paragliding near the Garsa landing site in Kullu district on Friday evening.
The accident happened when one paraglider doing acrobatics accidentally hit another paraglider and one of them fell to the ground.
The accident occurred when they were 100 feet above the ground. While Jayash Ram succumbed to his injuries, pilot Ashwani Kumar sustained serious injuries and was sent to PGI Chandigarh for treatment.
Police said a case under sections 125 (negligent act endangering life of others) and 106 (causing death by negligence) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita have been registered and further investigations are underway.
On January 7, a tourist from Andhra Pradesh had died while paragliding at Raison, about 20 km from Manali in Kullu district, following which tourism authorities closed the Naga Bagh paragliding site after negligence was found in the preliminary inquiry.
As per preliminary inquiry, the operator was found to be negligent as the flight did not take off from the site identified by the tourism department. The license of the operator was also cancelled.