A paraglider crashed into a cliff near 50 Northridge Drive in Daly City yesterday afternoon, leaving the pilot stranded several hundred feet below the roadway until rescuers could reach him. The man suffered moderate injuries and was pulled to safety in a rescue that took roughly 90 minutes, according to authorities.
The crash happened around 4:10 PM yesterday, according to the North County Fire Authority, as reported by The Mercury News. Crews located the man stranded on the cliff face and treated him at the scene before he was taken by ambulance to an area hospital. A California Highway Patrol helicopter was used to extract him from the cliff, authorities said, and no other injuries were reported in connection with the incident.
A Familiar Stretch of Coastline for Cliff Rescues
Wednesday's crash adds to a growing list of paragliding accidents along the same corridor of coastal bluffs stretching from Daly City's Mussel Rock to San Francisco's Fort Funston. Just five weeks earlier, on July 10, a 59-year-old paraglider pilot was injured after crashing into a cliff face roughly 400 feet below the top of the bluff near Mussel Rock, prompting another high-angle rope rescue by the North County Fire Authority, according to SFGATE. That crash came within a day of a hang glider crash at Fort Funston that sent a pilot to a trauma center, with both incidents occurring over a 24-hour span along a five-mile stretch of the San Mateo and San Francisco coastline, as detailed by Patch.
Earlier this year, on February 22, firefighters and police carried out another rope rescue near 130 Westline Drive in Daly City after a paraglider landed uninjured but became stranded on a beach 150 to 200 feet below the cliffs — an incident Hoodline previously covered. A similar rescue unfolded near the same address on July 12, 2025, when a male paraglider crashed onto a beach roughly 350 feet down a cliff face, according to OnScene.TV. The pattern stretches back further still: in May 2015, a 51-year-old San Bruno man died after crashing his paraglider into an oceanside cliff in Daly City, a fatality that underscores just how dangerous wind shifts and cliffside landings can be along the Peninsula coast.
Why the Bluffs Draw Pilots Into Danger
The coastal bluffs between Mussel Rock and Fort Funston generate strong onshore updrafts that make the area a magnet for paragliders and hang gliders, but flight guides warn that sustained winds over 15 mph and gusts over 18 mph require advanced skill to avoid collisions with cliffs and rotor turbulence. Mussel Rock Park itself features bluffs rising up to 640 feet above sea level, creating a microclimate where wind velocity can shift rapidly and complicate both launches and emergency extractions. Federal aviation rules also cap flights near Mussel Rock at 2,100 feet to keep pilots clear of San Francisco International Airport's controlled airspace.
Rescues in this stretch typically rely on a coordinated response between the North County Fire Authority's high-angle rope teams and California Highway Patrol Air Operations' helicopter hoist crews, according to SFGATE. The North County Fire Authority, formed in 2003 through a joint powers agreement covering Daly City, Pacifica, and Brisbane, maintains dedicated technical-rescue companies trained for the steep shoreline terrain along the San Mateo County coast. Notably, CHP helicopter extractions like yesterday come at no direct cost to patients, since the air unit is funded through state tax revenues and vehicle registration fees rather than billed to those it rescues.
