Paraglider who crashed twice in a year and broke his leg says he’s learning from his mistakes

A Territory paraglider who crashed twice in the space of a year and sustained a broken leg says he’s unfazed by the accidents and is using them to become a wiser pilot.

IF you crashed your paraglider twice in less than a year, would you consider going back?

Last Monday, October 5 at about 4.50pm Nico Sands crash landed into rocks, 80 km north of Alice Springs near the Tanami Hwy.

This is the second time Mr Sands has crashed in the last year but he said it would only make him a wiser pilot.

“The real danger is when people get into accidents but they don’t reflect on it or they don’t know where they went wrong,” Mr Sands said.

“In both accidents for me, I knew what went wrong – it is an opportunity to learn and be safer next time you fly.”

Mr Sands came out of the crash with a broken right femur.

“The wind was pushing me down really fast and I thought I could fly over a ridge,” he said.

“Because the wind was pushing me down so fast I didn’t fly over the ridge and flew into a bunch of rocks”.

Once Mr Sands was on the ground he did a self-assessment and checked to see what was painful and if there was any bleeding.

“Initially I thought I would wait until I felt better,” he said.

“I waited one hour and after an hour I still could not move so I decided okay, I’m not going to walk out of here so I need a rescue to come and pick me up.”

Mr Sands took all of the right steps before his take off. He let his partner know where he was going and an packed an emergency GPS similar to an EPIRB

“One good thing out of all of this was that I was prepared which turned a bad situation into a manageable situation with a positive outcome,” he said.

Mr Sands was hesitant in sharing his story because believes paragliding is not a dangerous sport but already has a bad name.

“A crash is never a good thing and I’m afraid it will paint a dangerous image of the sport,” he said.

Paraglider instructor Richie Binstead has been paragliding since 2012. He said the sport is often misunderstood.

“It’s quite a cerebral sport, there is a lot of thinking involved,” Mr Binstead said.

“The conditions are always changing so you need to be smart.”

Just like a surfer riding earth’s energy, paragliders use a scientific phenomenon called thermals which is an upward current of warm air created by the sun.

Mr Binstead said paragliders use thermals in the same a wedge tail eagle would soar through the sky.

“Paragliding is a form of aviation, we have these wings made of ripstop nylon that are connected to a harness – “it’s really science based and that’s a part of the attraction for a lot of people.

“Some people think we jump but we glide off a launch pad and harness the suns power to fly a distance.”