{"id":151445,"date":"2025-05-29T16:49:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T16:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/chinese-paraglider-almost-equals-world-record-at-28000-feet-by-accident-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T16:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T16:49:30","slug":"chinese-paraglider-almost-equals-world-record-at-28000-feet-by-accident-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/chinese-paraglider-almost-equals-world-record-at-28000-feet-by-accident-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese paraglider almost equals world record at 28,000 feet \u2014 by accident – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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HONG KONG \u2014 The sky was apparently not the limit for a Chinese paraglider <\/a>who climbed to a near record-breaking altitude of more than 28,000 feet Wednesday.
The only problem? He hadn’t even intended to fly.
In what acrophobes \u2014 those with a fear of heights \u2014 could only imagine in their worst nightmares, 55-year-old Peng Yujian was just conducting a routine equipment test in the northern province of Gansu when a powerful updraft lifted him off the ground.
\u201cI had just bought a secondhand paragliding harness and wanted to test it. So I was conducting ground parachute shaking,\u201d Peng told state-run broadcaster CCTV News<\/a> on Wednesday. \u201cThe wind suddenly picked up and lifted me into the air.\u201d
\u201cI tried to land as soon as possible, but I failed,\u201d he added, explaining that he was then carried even higher by a wind and ended up trapped in the cloud system, ascending as high as 5 miles above the ground to heights usually the preserve of commercial airliners.
According to a statement from the Aero Sports Association of Gansu Province, Peng is a licensed paraglider with two years of experience that appeared to come in handy on the video captured by a camera attached to his equipment.
NBC News could not independently verify the footage, released by CCTV, which showed Peng\u2019s face and gear coated in ice as he said: \u201cI can\u2019t get out now. I\u2019m totally lost.\u201d
Peng said he started to panic when he reached the cloud base.
\u201cEverything ahead [was] a vast expanse of whiteness,\u201d he told CCTV, adding that he had no directional awareness without a compass.
Even with a compass, it would have been too difficult to maintain direction because of poor visibility inside the clouds, Peng said. \u201cI thought I was flying straight, but in fact, I kept spinning around.\u201d
Peng said the scariest moment of his ordeal was when his parachute plunged headfirst toward the earth. But he managed to right himself before emerging from the cloud system heading northeast.
\u201cI looked around and thought: \u2018Ah, I\u2019m saved this time!\u201d <\/strong>he said.
In the Aero Sports Association statement, Peng, who was not wearing an oxygen mask, said that he gasped for air after landing and that he might have lost consciousness for about three minutes due to hypoxia and low temperatures.
Peng’s adventure almost saw him break the world record, itself also set accidentally in 2007 when a German paraglider was encased in ice<\/a> after being sucked into a tornadolike thunderstorm in Australia and carried to a height greater than Mount Everest.
Along with another pilot who published the video \u201cwithout permission,\u201d Peng was initially <\/strong>handed a six-month flight suspension, Chinese air sports authorities said.
Under China\u2019s national paragliding regulations<\/a>, pilots are required to have a valid license issued by the Aero Sports Federation of China, and a flight plan must be approved before any activity. Individuals who violate the rules are penalized based on the seriousness of the incident.
But the ban sparked a backlash on Chinese social media. <\/a>
\u201cHe barely made it out alive. It\u2019s not like he wanted to fly that high,\u201d one user wrote on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
While local media reported that the association withdrew the statement the same day, it is unclear whether Peng’s suspension is still in place.
Peng said the swelling in his body has \u201cgone down a lot,\u201d but that his hands and face still felt numb.
\u201cMy fear hasn\u2019t completely faded,\u201d Peng told CCTV News. \u201cI still feel uneasy when I think about it now.\u201d
He said he decided to \u201ctake a break\u201d from flying for the moment.
Mithil Aggarwal is a Hong Kong-based reporter\/producer for NBC News.
Peter Guo is\u00a0a fellow on NBC\u2019s Asia Desk, based in Hong Kong.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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ProfileSectionsLocaltvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC News news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeHONG KONG \u2014 The sky was apparently not the limit for a Chinese paraglider who climbed to a near record-breaking altitude of more than 28,000 feet Wednesday.The only problem? He hadn’t even intended to fly. In what acrophobes \u2014 those with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":151446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}