Colombian authorities have launched a desperate search for a man who mysteriously vanished while paragliding amid a huge gust of wind.
Luis Sanabria, 58, was last seen over Villavicencio, about 80 miles south east from the capital city of Bogotá, when he lost control in strong wind currents.
His wife, Angie Moreno, told Semana newspaper that he was with a group of friends who managed to land safely after noticing that the conditions were not suitable for paragliding.
‘It was the weather conditions, when he went out to fly, the weather was fine and suddenly a gust of wind took him away; his companions managed to get off,’ Moreno said.
‘We don’t know what condition he’s in, you can’t imagine the anxiety one is living, it’s been three nights without him.’
Sanabria, who has been paragliding for 15 years, was carrying a GPS during the flight, but they have not been able to trace his location, likely because it lost power.
Moreno believes the winds may have carried him towards Acacias, a town located 17 miles southwest of Villavicencio.
The area is difficult to reach and the weather conditions have make it even more troublesome for search and rescue crews to find Sanabria.
Luis Sanabria was paragliding over the central Colombian city of Villavicencio when a wind current dragged him away from his flight path Sunday afternoon.
The Colombian Air Force, aided by multiple first response agencies, have been searching for the 58-year systems engineer
A unit of about 25 first responders from the fire department, civil defense and Red Cross have joined the search for Sanabria, a former police officer who works as a systems engineer for the Villavicencio Transportation Ministry.
First responders used a drone to search the forested area in the town of Manzanares and the San Cristobal peak in Acacias.
The Colombia Air Force deployed a Blackhawk helicopter to assist with the mission,
Air Force captain, Andrés Rodríguez, said they studied the wind charts and other weather conditions which suggested that Moreno may have drifted towards Acacias.
‘We carried out a search using the aircraft’s electro-optical sensors and the aircraft’s rescuers, although due to the complex weather conditions in the area, it was not possible to find him,’ he said said.
The Colombian Air Force has been working alongside first responders from the fire department, civil defense and Red Cross to locate Luis Sanabria, a systems engineer for the Transportation Ministry in the city of Villavicencio, who vanished while paragliding
While the paragliding is considered a relatively safe extreme sport, many risks come with it, including injuries and fatalities.
In February, a female paraglider was blown off course while swirling winds that caused her to slam into a building in the southern Brazil municipality of Santos. A quick-thinking tenant pulled the woman into his apartment and out of harms away.
In January, 38-year-old Paulina Biskup, of Poland, died after she lost control of her parachute mid-flight and crashed Roldanillo, a town in southwestern Colombia.
Investigators would learn that Biskup ‘did not fasten the harness, and as a result, fell into the abyss.’
