GILLETTE, Wyo. — Gillette and Sleepy Hollow residents looking up at the sky at about 5:30 p.m. Oct. 7 may have seen a paraglider who was flying a bit low.
Jonathan Musser, the man aboard the paraplane, said that at the end of his 45-minute flight, the engine died at about 1,000 feet. Above Sleepy Hollow, he tried again and again to restart the pull-start engine. Paragliding is motor-dependent.
“Suspending your body in the air from a piece of parachute fabric is a life-or-death situation,” Musser said. “When the engine cut out, I gave every last ounce of physical strength trying to restart it using the rip cord. I’ve never crashed before and didn’t know my chances of surviving. But in my exhaustion, I had a serene acceptance of the situation and just focused on using the rest of the altitude and my limited maneuverability on finding a safe place to crash.”
Just a few minutes later, he had landed into Harry Wolff’s field on Union Chapel Road, east of the Shell station on Highway 59. He hit barbed wire, but it could have been worse; he is grateful he did not hit a power line or land in a river.
While it was only his second flight and it had been more than five years since the last time he flew, Musser said the crash was due to equipment failure, not inexperience. He actually feels safer now that he has experienced a crash.
“I’ll be more cautious about keeping an eye on safe landing spots, even when things are going good, but I was pleasantly surprised at how gentle the crash landing was,” he said.
He said paragliding is a safe, affordable way to fly and a pilot’s license is not necessary. Through paragliding, or power parachuting, he has flown through a cloud and seen the top of Devil’s Tower, which was less flat than he expected it would be. Flying through a cloud was cold and wet.
“It’s amazing to see the world from a different perspective,” he said.
People new to paragliding should always fly near open fields, however, according to Musser.
Power parachutes used to be pretty popular, according to Musser’s father, Ken. About 15 years ago, there was a group of about 20 people who would fly.
Ken started flying after a friend sold him the paraplane. His adventures began after years of wanting to fly. He read flying manuals, but he never had the opportunity to become a professional pilot.
“I just think that flying is the most wonderful thing,” he said. “You get going 28 mph on the ground, and this thing takes off. So you’re really flying about 28 mph and going as high as you dare.”
Ken said he once flew to 10,000 feet, but it was too cold to be any fun. Especially compared with Jonathan’s crash landing, coming down from 10,000 feet takes a long time. He could smell the ocean, though.
Wolff said today that he did not see the crash and that, as long as the Mussers do not leave the paraplane on his property, he does not have a problem with the incident.
