Kid’s death: Campaign for adventure site safety

A Bengaluru couple lost their 12-year-old son when their jeep fell into a gorge, and the organisers fled from the scene

A family from Bengaluru has turned the loss of their 12-year-old son into a resolve to make adventure tourism in India safer.

Advik Tripathi died on December 22 when an open jeep, ferrying him, his parents and a family friend to a paragliding take-off site in Himachal Pradesh’s Bir Biling village, collided with a Scooty and fell into a 15-foot gorge.

There was no ambulance or first-aid at hand, says Rishabh Tripathi, his father. The IT professional, who lives near Whitefield, launched a change.org petition last week to demand stricter compliance for adventure activities. The petition has logged over 2 lakh signatures and hundreds of retweets, including one by Bollywood music composer Vishal Dadlani. Priyanka Chaturvedi, member of the Rajya Sabha, took note and wrote a letter to the departments of tourism and sports to form a centralised policy.

Afterthoughts

“Our driver fled the accident spot along with the pilots. Locals rushed us to the hospital,” Rishabh recalls.

The paragliding agency did not come to the hospital either, the 44-year-old explains. While Advik died after his head hit a rock, his parents suffered grave injuries and are recovering.

Rishabh recalls the fateful afternoon at Bir Biling, a tourist attraction in Kangra valley, which catapulted to fame after hosting the Paragliding World Cup in 2015. About 3,000 people come for tandem paragliding (a tourist plus a pilot) every month between April and June, the peak season.

“A bunch of people surrounded us, saying if we don’t go paragliding then, the weather might turn bad. Soon we were signing a waiver form that said they won’t be responsible for any paragliding mishap. We saw other people in the distance flying and thought ‘okay’. The form neither mentioned the transport to the take-off site, which was 10-12 km away, nor did we get a copy,” Rishabh continues.

“It was a five-seater but the driver picked up four extra people (pilots) on the way,” he talks of another red flag.

Anurag Sharma is the president of Bir-Billing Paragliding Association, which oversees competitive solo paragliding, unlike commercial paragliding that comes under travel agencies. He says the latter is unregulated. At least 70% of drivers overload their vehicles with people, and 30% paragliding pilots are unlicensed, he estimates.

“Audits have happened, (unsafe) gliding equipment seized and operators fined but the checks should happen every day, at both the landing and take-off sites, not once in a while,” he says.

Suo moto action

Following a media report, a division bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court took suo moto action and set up a committee to verify the registration and licences of adventure tour operators in the state.

The court has invited Rishabh to join the next hearing on February 21 virtually and give inputs to fix the systemic lapses in adventure tourism. To that end, Rishabh is studying the SOPs in place in countries like New Zealand that are famous for adventure sports. “The high court’s action is unprecedented. Somewhere, Advik is making things move for us ,” Rishabh says.

‘Loved adventure’

During the trip, Advik built snowmen and collected river stones.

A class 7 student of Greenwood High School and academically bright, Advik’s death has shocked his teachers and classmates, and also families in the apartment, where he lived.

Rishabh says, “He loved adventure. Because of him, I sat in a roller-coaster ride in Singapore, I went swimming in the ocean in Italy, I went ziplining across a river during our holiday in Himachal. My wife (currently a homemaker) and I experienced new things because of him.”

Charity in Advik’s name

The family is registering a charitable foundation in Advik’s name. “It will support the causes he was passionate about — from wildlife to sports. We will put in our money and whatever we get from insurance and compensation (which the Himachal government is offering),” Rishabh says.

What family wants

First-aid and ambulance at adventure sites.

Insurance for those taking part in adventures.

End-to-end accountability for operators.

Timely audits to suspend and revoke licences.

An SOP to ensure safety and emergency response.