A man who died after crashing into the side of a mountain while paragliding over the weekend in Riverside County has been identified as a 34-year-old Long Beach resident.
Authorities said they found Cameron Chapman about 1,000 feet up on the side of the San Jacinto Mountains, near the 200 block of Soboba Road in Gilman Hot Springs around 9:39 a.m. Sunday. The area is just over 50 miles southeast of San Bernardino.
Firefighters and law enforcement agents made their way to the mountainside to help Chapman, and a helicopter was requested to airlift him out of the area, but paramedics pronounced him dead less than an hour later, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.
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Chapman had been paragliding at the time, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. It’s not clear why he crashed.
Jeremy Bishop, the owner of Soboba Flight Park, which offers paragliding, speed flying, powered paragliding, hiking, biking, and camping, said Chapman had been flying for years and was an experienced pilot, but on Sunday he was doing “advanced maneuvers” when he crashed into the side of the mountain.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in San Jacinto did not immediately respond to questions from the Long Beach Post.