Daily Times

Sebastian Piotr Kawa, one of the Polish aviators who made history last week by flying above the 8,611-meter-high K2 mountain in northern Pakistan, hoped he had “cleared the path” for future pilots to achieve the same feat.

Kawa and Sebastian Lampart became the first pair to fly over the second-highest mountain in the world, K2, when they successfully flew their Ash25 glider over it on Saturday. Their two-seater glider was equipped only with oxygen and a small emergency engine. The pair took off from Skardu airport in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan region and then flew over the mountain.

But flying above K2 was no simple task. Mountain Challenger, the company that organized the tour, said apart from the high altitude, the weather at K2 was windy and flights in the Karakorum mountain range, where the mountains are located, are heavily restricted.

Kawa told Arab News there were no gliding activities in the area, and to fly over the mountain, the pair needed permissions from “a lot of institutions.”

“I hope we cleared the path for future pilots and gliding tourists because this place deserves it,” Kawa said. “It is a fantastic place to fly. I was in Nepal and I find Pakistan nicer.”

Kawa, a sports pilot who regularly participates in flying competitions around the world, has 24 medals from World Gliding Championships, 18 of them being gold.

“I always like challenges. I am a sports pilot participating in competitions,” he said. “This was always a challenge. Soaring sport is dedicated to mountains.”

Before gliding over K2, Kawa has flown above the Himalayas, including the 8,849-meter-high Mount Everest.

“I decided to do something I never had a chance to do flying in competition— to explore mountains where nobody had flown before,” Kawa explained.

He counted his most important wins in the Sailplane Grand Prix gliding competition, where the first three rounds were held in the French Alps, the Southern Alps in New Zealand and the Andes in South America. Kawa said one needs skills and knowledge to glide in extremely high altitudes, pointing out that gliders do not use engines during flight.

“It is sometimes dangerous if you navigate around valleys without landings or heavy weather like thunderstorms,” he said, adding that heavy winds also trouble pilots. “You may use it or it can cause a lot of trouble. For successful soaring, air has to move so flying in calm weather is not an option,” he explained.

‘FLYABLE BY GLIDER’

Kawa said he knew the Pakistani mountains would be a “fantastic place to fly” given the region they are in is much drier. It is not like Pokhara city in Nepal, Kawa said, where there is moist air from the Bay of Bengal or the Caucasus region which gets constant thunderstorms due to the Black Sea nearby.

“They are very flyable by glider,” the Polish pilot said. “It is very similar to the Alps where you can fly in any direction, it is not like one chain in the Andes but a vast area.”

He said the clouds in northern Pakistan are above the mountain peaks, adding that the high altitudes provide pilots a lot of space to fly around obstacles.

“I wish we could fly here in another season when it is windier because it allows us to fly much higher and faster,” Kawa said. And mountains weren’t the only thing Kawa became fond of during his brief trip of Pakistan.

“I visited Pakistan for the first time and I need to say, the people are fantastic, very friendly,” he said.