Two people fell from a glider in the forest of Harissa on Sept. 1, 2025. (Credit: Civil Defense on X)
BEIRUT — In the fourth incident involving paragliding in the past four months, two people fell from a glider on Monday in the forest of Harissa (Kesrouan district,) suffering various injuries as a result.
The Lebanese Civil Defense announced in a statement after the incident that it rescued the two people, one Lebanese and the other Iraqi, who "suffered various injuries after falling from a glider they were riding in the Harissa forest.” According to the statement, “one of them was caught in a tree while the other fell to the ground."
"The Lebanese victim was taken to a hospital in the area, while the other victim was treated at the scene of the accident", the Civil Defense statement reads.
Following the incident, Sports Minister, Nora Bayrakdarian, suspended on Tuesday the licenses of several associations for failure to comply with a ministry decision that was taken on Aug. 25, according to the state-run National News Agency (NNA.)
This decision stipulates that associations should provide the ministry with two separate lists of the names of certified solo and tandem pilots accredited by each association, along with copies of their certificates.
The suspension shall remain in effect until their status is settled in accordance with the decisions issued by the Ministry. The associations whose licenses got suspended are the following: Northern Eagles Association, Cedars Paragliding Association, Lebanese Paragliding Association, Delta Sports Association.
Contacted by L'Orient Today on Tuesday, Wissam Chartouny, the vice-president of the Lebanese paragliding club — not the same as the Lebanese Paragliding Association mentioned in the ministry’s decision — told L'Orient Today that the people who fell were performing tandem paragliding, which is a form of paragliding where two people fly together on the same wing: One person acting as the pilot (the instructor) and the other as the passenger.
Last May, a young man, who was doing the same kind of paragliding (tandem), fell and died, also over Jounieh Bay. Apparently, the harness was not properly secured, leading to the accident.
According to Chartouny, the reason behind the accident in Harissa on Monday is that those involved did the activity at the wrong time, as the wind after 6 pm changes its direction, making it complicated to paraglide.
In a broader sense, Chartouny, who holds a certificate from the Association of Paragliding Pilots and Instructors along with very few other people in Lebanon, said that there are a lot of incidents this year as “some people, who don’t hold any certificate, are working as instructors and “there is no oversight whatsoever from the concerned authorities.”
Last month, Omar Sinjer, a paraglider who was flying over Jounieh Bay (Kesrouan), died after crashing into the sea while performing acrobatic maneuvers.
As a result, Bairakdarian decided to ban the practice of acrobatic paragliding due to the lack of a legal framework to protect the sport. Another paraglider was injured after falling during a flight in Jbeil last week.
