Freak flight survivor

A German para glider has been thrown to a height beyond Mt Everest by a storm and has survived to tell the story

Ana Wisnerska, 35, was carried to 30,000 feet (9,144 metres) while free-flying near Tamworth, 280 km (173 miles) northwest of Sydney, in a practice run on Wednesday ahead of an international competition next week.

A 42-year-old member of the Chinese team, He Zhongpin, died in the sudden storm, which struck while around 200 people were flying their parachute-style canopies.

Wisnerska, a member of the German team, had been carried to a height greater than the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) Mt Everest -- an area known to mountaineers as the death zone for its extreme cold -- in just 10 minutes and was rendered unconscious for almost an hour.

She encountered hailstones the size of oranges, and the temperature plummeted to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit).

"There's no oxygen. She could have suffered brain damage. But she came to again at a height of 6,900 metres with ice all over her body and slowly descended herself," one of Australia's most experienced paraglider pilots Godfrey Wenness said.

Polish born, Wisnierska, nicknamed Birdy, works for the Air-Touch paragliding school in Nassau, central Germany.

School proprietor Jochen Henrichs said all students were taught that it was dangerous to fly near thunderstorms because of updrafts.

"Ewa was very lucky," he said, adding that he did not know of a single other paraglider pilot who had survived such an ordeal.