Carol Kirkwood: BBC presenter recalls terrifying flying experience – 'I was praying'

Carol Kirkwood, a regular on BBC Breakfast, agreed to go hang-gliding on The Great British Weather Show in 2011.

The daredevil had to be towed by a small aircraft in order to reach the “cloud base”, where she would be released into the skies.

But as the plane ascended, the tow rope pulling herself and her fellow flyers snapped and they were forced to make an emergency landing.

Recounting the horrifying moment, Carol said: “As I get older, I am getting to be more of a daredevil but that was the scariest thing I have done and I will never do it again.

“With hang-gliding, all that’s between you and eternity is a wee kite, a metal frame and the ­equivalent of a sleeping bag.”

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She continued: “When we took off, because we had to get up to the cloud base five miles up, we were towed up by a tiny plane and the tow rope snapped at two miles up.

“We had to make a crash landing and I was like, ‘Oh no, please don’t let this happen’.”

However, there was no time to recover once they landed safely, as the group were taken straight back up again.

“That was probably the right thing to do,” The TV star told the Daily Record in 2012.

“I don’t know if they would have got me back on again if I had time to think about it.”

She added: “I was praying the whole way. It was terrifying.”

This year Carol, 56, said she become “braver” after separating from her husband of 18 years, Jimmy Kirkwood.

In an interview with Radio Times, the TV personality said: “I’m braver now. I’ve flown with the Red Arrows, jumped out of planes with the Red Devils.

“When I was younger I would never have done that because I’d have thought, ‘Too dangerous!’ Now I think, ‘Oh, you’ve got to live your life!’”

She added: “I found myself when I got divorced. I started to do things and to think, ‘I’m not going to say no, I’m going to say yes!’”

The radio presenter married property developer Jimmy in 1990, but the couple divorced almost two decades later in 2008.

Carol took a break from the BBC when she married the developer and went on to work at the Weather Channel.

When the channel folded she returned to the BBC and was sent for further training at the Met Office.

She first joined BBC Breakfast in 1998 and has gone on to win ‘Weather presenter of the year’ award nine times.

BBC Breakfast airs weekdays on BBC One.

source: express.co.uk


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