This Video Shows an Untethered Hang Glider Hanging On For Dear Life

There are action shots in movies, and then there’s this video that will give you sweaty palms. A camera mounted on a hang glider captured what happened when a man suddenly realized that his safety harness wasn’t attached to the glider. It was a 2-minute-long white-knuckle ride 4,000 feet in the air.

American Chris Gursky was visiting Switzerland when he decided to experience hang gliding for the first time. Before launching from a high hilltop, however, the instructor in the tandem flight failed to attach Gursky’s safety harness to the glider.

Only after launching into the air did the duo suddenly realize that Gursky was completely untethered and hanging on with only his hands.

And despite the instructors best efforts, the glider had no place to land for over 2 minutes, during which it flew higher and higher until reaching a reported 4,000+ feet.

Gursky gripped the steering bar as hard as he could with his left hand while searching about with his right hand in an effort to find a good grip on the instructor’s body and harness. He held on just long enough for the instructor to get low enough for a bumpy end to the terrifying flight.

“The landing was a rough one, but I lived to tell the story,” Gursky says. He fractured his wrist in his fall to the ground, but he otherwise escaped serious harm and death. And he left Switzerland with one heck of a vacation video…

(via Gursk3 via Steve’s Digicams)