The paraglider who died after flying over Musala is among the most experienced in our country
In his last flight, Toma Stoichkov had good visibility and the weather was calm, as shown by the footage of another paraglider, with which he flew over Rila. The first words his friends say about him are similar, writes BNT.
An acquaintance of the deceased paraglider indicated the probable cause of his death.
“I gave up at the last moment and went to Konyavo. At 11:00 at the top station it was reading 6m/s. I waited after lunch until it got stronger because in Windy they predicted a wind of 10-12 m/ssa 3000 m. Sometimes with stronger wind at the beginning Markujik 2 shows values lower than the real one. Since the slope is very steep, there is something like a wave in front of the slope which you can hold onto without looking for the thermals, but if you leave the ascending area, you see that the wind is stronger.
I guess he decided to fly to Musala. His instructor had done it with a tandem, only in a weaker wind. After reaching the height of the peak, he found that he couldn’t break through even with the speed pressed. He didn’t have enough headroom to blow the wind over the rear rotor area. That’s why he decided to try to land on top. Approaching the slope with the speed pressed down, she encountered severe turbulence and the situation spiraled out of control. This is Musala, after all, not a rasnik, if you force the wind to land on top,” writes Yasen Hristov.
Paraglider Toma Stoichkov, who died yesterday after waiting for a military helicopter for almost 3 hours, was one of our most promising pilots, his colleagues in this sports commentary. He was also the winner of the first flying competition in Bansko. Today his friends are looking for the answer to the most important question: when the state will provide emergency aid to the mountains.
“The smilingest paraglider,” says Kalin Kostadinov.
“He always helped everyone, he never let me down in anything and I’m happy to have known him,” added Georgi Jolev, paragliding champion.
Stoichkov was also quite experienced, with more than 500 flight hours.
“According to eyewitnesses who were at the top when they saw him in the crash, he lost control of his glider and in trying to fix it, take off again, he couldn’t, the altitude was very low. It’s a free flight fall What happened to him is that a whirlwind took him with a very strong force and spun him around and maybe hit him against the wall with force, because otherwise there is no way he can break both his legs like that ”says Kalin Kostadinov .
When asked if the risk taken was the cause of the accident, the friends of paragliding answered categorically.
“No, no. And this flight, which he tried to make now on the fateful day, he did many times, also overcoming the distance much more,” says Kostadinov.
“Even when we competed, he didn’t like to fly at high speed, but he was more cautious and he knew how to judge the conditions quite well and protect himself,” Jolev added.
About 3 hours pass before a military helicopter is sent to Toma. Kalin also fell. Except he was rescued by a medical helicopter.
“They took me out from 2,900m in the Pyrenees. In 35 minutes the helicopter arrived and in 45 minutes I was in a medical centre,” he explained.
Such a medical helicopter continues to be promised in our country. But paragliders are increasingly wondering when there will be such a helicopter in Bulgaria as well.
“We can’t have a fair race on a global scale, because if there’s an incident like the one with Tommy, we can’t offer him efficient help,” Kostadinov explained.
The expected helicopter could arrive not before the end of this year.
