Ewa Wiśnierska,
née
The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
Cieślewicz (born 23 December 1971,
Nysa, Poland), is a Polish
paraglider
Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched Glider (aircraft), glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a :wikt:harness, harness or in ...
, a member of the German national paragliding team, who won the
Paragliding World Cup on several occasions. In 2007, she survived extreme cold,
lightning
Lightning is a natural phenomenon consisting of electrostatic discharges occurring through the atmosphere between two electrically charged regions. One or both regions are within the atmosphere, with the second region sometimes occurring on ...
and lack of
oxygen
Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
during an ascent to almost inside a
cumulonimbus cloud
Cumulonimbus () is a dense, towering, vertical cloud, typically forming from water vapor condensing in the lower troposphere that builds upward carried by powerful buoyant air currents. Above the lower portions of the cumulonimbus the water ...
.
Wiśnierska lives in
Aschau im Chiemgau
Aschau im Chiemgau is a municipality and a village in the district of Rosenheim in Bavaria in Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to ...
, Bavaria, where she teaches paragliding and runs a company which offers courses in personal development.
Accident
On 14 February 2007, in spite of a forecast of violent thunderstorms, Wiśnierska decided to try to fly in order to train for the 2007
World Paragliding Championships
World Paragliding Championships is the main competitive paragliding championships in the World, organized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
Cross Country Paragliding
All-time medal table (1991–2023)
Updated after the 2023 W ...
near
Manilla, New South Wales
Manilla is a small town in New South Wales, Australia, located on Fossickers Way 45 kilometres northwest of the regional city of Tamworth and 27 kilometres northeast of the historic village Somerton. Manilla is famous for its setting as a fi ...
, Australia. She was sucked into the ascending current of a cumulonimbus cloud, a cloud responsible for large and heavy rains, usually with hail inside and extremely low temperatures. Unable to get out, she was lifted to an altitude of , according to her
global positioning system
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide ge ...
(GPS) data. The GPS variometer also tracked vertical speeds of up to 21 m/s (). She landed more than three hours later about north of her starting position.
In the same weather event, 42-year-old Chinese paraglider He Zhongpin was killed by a lightning strike.
Film
In 2010,
ABC1
ABC TV, formerly known as ABC1, is an Australian national public television network. It is owned and operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and is the flagship (broadcasting), flagship ABC Television (Australian TV network), A ...
and
France 5
France 5 () is a French free-to-air public television channel, part of the France Télévisions group. Principally featuring nonfiction and educational programming, the channel's motto is ''la chaîne de la connaissance et du savoir'' (the knowl ...
made the
documentary film
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
''Miracle in the Storm'' about her story.
''Miracle in the Storm''
ABC1, summary The film was nominated as Most Outstanding Factual Program for the
Logie Awards of 2011
The 53rd Annual TV Week Logie Awards was held on Sunday 1 May 2011 at the Crown Palladium in Melbourne, and broadcast on the Nine Network. The ceremony was hosted by Shane Bourne, while the red carpet arrivals was hosted by Shelley Craft, Livini ...
and won the category Best Cinematography in a Documentary at the
2010 Australian Film Institute Awards.
See also
*
Cumulonimbus and aviation
Numerous aviation accidents have occurred in the vicinity of thunderstorms due to the density of clouds. It is often said that the turbulence can be extreme enough inside a cumulonimbus to tear an aircraft into pieces, and even strong enough to h ...
*
William Rankin
Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin (October 16, 1920 – July 6, 2009) was the first person to survive a fall from the top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud. He was a pilot in the United States Marine Corps and a World War II and Korean ...
, who survived a similar fall decades earlier
References
1971 births
Sportspeople from Nysa, Poland
Living people
Paraglider pilots
German sportswomen
Polish emigrants to Germany
{{Germany-sport-bio-stub