Extreme Kitesurf Accidents

[RickI]

I looked into this. Going from memory, there was a military training operation underway over several days. Military helicopters were flying all over. In this case a larger chopper was flying fairly low and the kiter was on the beach with his kite up. Reading between the lines, I suspect his kite was caught by the turbulent outflow from the powerful downdraft and badly yarded. His kite wasn't sucked into the blades nor did he seem to come very close to it but he was hurt.

https://www.ilmessaggero.it/roma/cronac ... 14859.html


this happenes like 2 weeks ago at mu home spot. An army elicopter flew too low and it sucked a kite for like 20-25 m
lucky to be alive, now kiter is better, but wtf!!!

My Italian is not nearly as passable as it was 25 years ago, so I had to rely on the auto translate function in google chrome. I'm pretty sure something is being lost in translation...

"Kitesurfer sucked by a "pirate" military helicopter under his wife's eyes: it's serious"

[JakeFarley]

This reminded me of a "near miss" with a powered paraglider several years ago. He was coming up behind me about 15' off the water just as I was about to make a transition. I could not hear his engine as it was idling. Must have swooped down unpowered. Fortunately I saw him out of the corner of my eye. If I had made the transition I would have hit him. I think he would have gotten the worst of it with the weight of the engine strapped to his back. He left the area right after that. I returned to the beach to find the police and fire rescue there. Someone had called them in anticipation of an accident as he and two other paragliders were buzzing kiters and people on the beach. Just goes to show that we have to be alert to anything in the air, on the water or in the water.