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Nov. 27, 2018 / 4:38 PM GMT
By Kalhan Rosenblatt
A man’s first time hang gliding in Switzerland turned into a terrifying ordeal after he realized he hadn’t been strapped in before take off.
Chris Gursky was on the first day of a vacation to Switzerland when he decided to go hang gliding. He filmed what was expected to be a serene flight over Swiss forests and greenery, and instead turned into a nail-biting two minutes.
A video of the flight, which was posted to YouTube on Monday, has since been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
The video starts with Gursky standing behind an unidentified pilot as the two run to launch the glider. After the launch, Gursky is shown immediately realizing he’s not strapped in, and grasped both the aircraft and the instructor.
“Houston, we have a problem,” Gursky wrote as a subtitle on the video.
The hang glider is seen continuing to climb as the pilot tries to regain control and land. Meanwhile, Gursky grasps a metal bar and the back of the pilot’s shirt.
Gursky, of Florida, wrote that he appreciated the pristine view, despite thinking he was about to die.
The hang glider then soars high above the trees as the pilot desperately tries to steer the device back toward the ground.
Finally, after a couple frightening minutes in the air, the hang glider gets low enough that Gursky is able to drop off.
He said he suffered a broken wrist that required surgery, but was able to walk away with his life.
“While the pilot made a critical error in our pre-flight setup by not attaching me to the glider, he did all he could to get me down to the ground as quickly as possible, while grabbing on to my harness and flying with one hand,” Gursky wrote.
He wrote that because he didn’t get to enjoy his first flight, he plans to give hang gliding another try.
