Paraglider suffered heart attack during flight in Wicklow Mountains, says air accident report

A father of three who died when paragliding in the Wicklow mountains suffered a heart attack, an air accident report has found.

Rafal ‘Ralph’ Skóra, 41, a paragliding enthusiast originally from Poland, but who was living in Artane north Dublin, with his wife Dominika, three-year-old son Benjamin and 12-week-old daughter Julianna, died last May when he disappeared while flying over the Wicklow mountains.

Mr Skóra also had a 21-year-old son Jakub from his first marriage lives in Poland.

A post mortem examination carried out as part of the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) report found that he died from a heart attack. It states, “The cause of death was acute myocardial infarction, due to, or as a consequence of occlusive coronary artery thrombosis with atheroma”.

Mr Skóra did not suffer any fractures in the crash and toxicology tests showed he did not have any alcohol nor drugs in his system.

The taxi driver captured the hearts of the nation by trying to track down a man he picked up outside Merrion Row in the city centre on the evening of May 10.

He dropped the man at a Spar shop in Monkstown, nine kilometres away. It was only when Ralph had dropped the man, that he found a wedding gift voucher worth €500 belonging to him.

He launched a successful social media campaign to find the man just 24 hours before his tragic death.

The Polish man launched his paraglider from a location at Sorrel Hill, Co Wicklow at 11.33am with the intention of going on a cross-country flight to Wexford town.

Mr Skóra had arranged to meet a fellow paraglider pilot at 8.30am and they then went to a car park at Lacken, Co Wicklow. From there they hiked with their paragliding equipment to a launch point on Sorrel Hill, which took around 30 minutes, arriving there at around 10am.

While waiting for some low cloud to clear, the two pilots set up their equipment and completed safety checks. The second paraglider pilot stated in the AAIU report that they “would be methodical when it comes to safety” and noted that Mr Skóra “took his time to carry out safety checks”.

He watched him launch and head south before he launched from the same site at 11.52am and went south also to fly together for 50 minutes until they lost contact.

The launch was witnessed by a fellow Paraglider pilot who he had met earlier with the intention of them both attempting cross-country flights as far as Wexford.

Mr Skóra gained height and then proceeded in a south-easterly direction towards the Glenmalur Valley. A mobile phone application used by the pilot showed the entire flight, from the launch point to the north slope of Ballinacor Mountain in Co. Wicklow where his body was found the next morning.

He was still attached to the Pilot’s seat harness. Recorded data showed that the Paraglider had been airborne for an hour and 33 minutes.

At 14.18pm the second pilot sent a message by phone to Mr Skóra, but when it was not delivered he presumed that his friend was still airborne. He then sent another message at 4pm, when he considered that most flying would have been finished for the day.

At 4.30pm, he arrived back at his car at Lacken, Co Wicklow.

Four hours later, Mr Skóra’s wife contacted the second pilot, concerned that she had not been contacted by her husband. Mr Skóra was then reported missing to the Gardaí.

He was found at 7.30am the next day by members of the Dublin-Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team and was pronounced dead later that morning by a doctor who attended the scene along Ballinacor Mountain.

The report showed that Mr Skóra had considerable experience in long-duration flights with several flights in excess of seven hours and hundreds of hours flying time. The Pilot held a Para Pro three licence, and his experience was above this minimum level.

Pearse Cafferky, chairperson of the Irish Hand Gliding and Paragliding Association (IHPA) and friend of Mr Skóra’s family said: “This report will hopefully help to bring some closure for Ralph’s family and friends and the wider free flying community.

“It also preserves Ralph’s reputation as an excellent pilot and that his tragic death was not the result of any decisions or actions taken in the course of his flight. It was an unforeseen tragic event that could have happened at any time."

“Ralph’s wife Dominika has asked we all remember Ralph as the good person and pilot we all knew and take comfort in the knowledge that he passed away high in the clouds doing what he loved, flying free.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the rescue services for locating and recovering Ralph and the kind and compassionate way they treated our members who had gathered at the GMMR Base in Laragh on the morning of the search. Also, I would like to thank the AAIU for their thorough and timely report into the accident.

“With the publication of this report the Association will be working to see what lessons can be learned from this tragic event, both in avoiding accidents in the future but also how we respond to them.

“Finally on behalf of the IHPA committee I would again like to express our sincere sympathy to Ralph’s family and friends at their tragic loss, he is truly missed”.