A Paraglider Got Caught in a ‘Cloud Suck’ and Nearly Froze to Death Miles Above the Earth: Watch the Terrifying Viral Footage
Peng Yujiang, 55, had a camera attached to his glider that captured the near-fatal ordeal on Saturday, May 24
NEED TO KNOW
- A paraglider in China was swept 27,800 feet above the earth when he got caught in a rare updraft
- Now-viral footage of the incident shows Peng Yujiang, 55, flying through the air while coated in frost and ice
- Peng, who was somehow largely unharmed, survived temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees, as well as low levels of oxygen
A paraglider in China survived getting swept 27,800 feet above the earth — a height typically reserved for commercial airliners.
Peng Yujiang, 55, was testing new paragliding equipment on the ground in the northern province of Gansu on Saturday, May 24 when a rare updraft known as a “cloud suck” pulled him into a cloud formation, the BBC and NBC News reported.
The entire experience can be seen in now-viral footage as he had a camera mounted on his glider at the time.
The video, which was originally uploaded to Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, shows Yujiang flying through the air at an extremely high altitude, his face and body coated in ice due to the extremely low temperatures.
“It was terrifying … Everything was white,” Yujiang, who has been paragliding for four and a half years, told the China Media Group, per the BBC.
“I couldn’t see any direction. Without the compass, I wouldn’t have known which way I was going. I thought I was flying straight, but in reality, I was spinning,” he continued.
He added, “I wanted to come down quickly, but I just couldn’t. I was lifted higher and higher until I was inside the cloud.”
Temperatures at such altitudes can reach as low as minus 40 degrees, and Yujiang told the outlet that he may have lost consciousness during the ordeal due to a lack of oxygen.
While speaking to state-run broadcaster CCTV News, Yujiang shared that he hadn’t even planned to paraglide that day, and was simply testing the fit of the new equipment, per BBC.
Yujiang also shared that his hands and face still felt numb from the incident, and noted that while his body was initially quite swollen, it had “gone down a lot,” NBC News reported.
“My fear hasn’t completely faded. I still feel uneasy when I think about it now,” he told CCTV News, before adding that he has plans to “take a break” from flying for now.
Yujiang almost broke the world record for the highest paragliding flight, which was set in 2007 during another accidental and near-fatal incident, when Ewa Wiśnierska, a German paraglider, was sucked into a tornado-like thunderstorm in Australia. Wiśnierska, who survived the incident mostly unharmed, drifted about six miles above the Earth for approximately 45 minutes.
