In a tragic mishap, a South Korean professional paraglider was killed after his glider crashed on a stony terrain at the hill station of Panchgani in Satara district of western Maharashtra.

Giving the details of the incident that took place on Tuesday evening, Station officer of Panchgani Police station RN Kaple said on Wednesday that the paraglider, identified as one Sang Taek Oh (45) had taken off in his gilder from Rajpuri point located on the outskirts of Panchgani.

“While in the air, he could not control his glider because of the strong winds coming from the opposite direction. He lost track of his route. Instead of landing at the pre-determined point, he went round the circles and crashed on stony terrain in the forests located in the vicinity of Panchgani,” Kaple said, quoting a team of paragliders that spotted Sangh Oh and rushed him to a nearby hospital.

Late on Tuesday, a local mountaineering team tracked him down to the spot where the glider had crashed and rushed to Government hospital at Wai town, where he was declared dead upon admission. “He had suffered severe injuries. He had succumbed to the injuries before he was brought to the hospital,” a doctor who examined him said. After a post mortem, the Panchgani police handed over Sang Oh’s body to the officials of the South Korean Consulate.

A trained paraglider, Sang Oh was training for an international solo paragliding competition that began at Panchgani on Tuesday. More than 100 paragliders from different parts of the are participating in the competition which will continue till Sunday.

Paragliding, which has become a popular adventure-cum-recreational sport in hill resorts and tourist destinations of Maharashtra, has been attracting professionals, amateurs and tourists from the across world for more than five years now.

Following the mishap, the Maharashtra Government is likely to impose restrictions and lay down guidelines for paraglinding sport to ensure against mishaps like the one witnessed on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Panchgani police have registered an offence under section 304 A (Causing death by negligence) against one of the organisers from a Mumbai-based company.