Clifford Ireland, NSRI Durban station commander, said; “At 10h00 on Saturday 21 September, NSRI Durban volunteer sea rescue duty crew were activated following reports of a motorized paraglider ditched in the sea half a kilometer off-shore of Amanzimtoti Main Beach.
“Our NSRI Durban volunteer sea rescue duty crew launched our sea rescue craft and our sea rescue vehicle, Police Search and Rescue, a Police helicopter, eThekwini Fire and Rescue Services KZN-EMRS (Emergency Medical and Rescue Services) and Netcare 911 ambulance services responded.
“On arrival on-scene NSRI rescue craft and the Police helicopter conducted a sea search while shore sea rescue crews and Police gathered information from eye-witnesses and investigated, looking for any overdue motorized paragliders that could be related to this incident.
“Following an extensive search, after nothing was found, no sign of any wreckage or persons in any difficulty, and no reports of motorized paragliders unaccounted for and no one reported missing or overdue, the search was called off.
“It is unclear what eye witnesses saw. 3 separate eye-witnesses had seen what they strongly believed to be a motorized paraglider ditch in the sea. Police will continue to monitor the situation and react on any new information but at this stage it appears that this may have been mistaken identity and what eye-witnesses saw may have been something other than a motorized paraglider but it remains unknown exactly what at this stage and the eye-witnesses are credible and they had good intentions in alerting emergency services.”
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