Flying high... the Human Swan back in the skies after tragedy
SHE is the daredevil adventurer who has risked everything flying around the world to highlight the plight of endangered species.
But last year, an expedition in Scotland ended in tragedy when conservationist
Sacha Dench and a colleague plunged to the ground after a mid-air collision – killing him and leaving her with lifechanging leg injuries.
Just months later, however, she is taking to the skies again.
In a journey that aims to bring attention to one of the country’s most magnificent birds, 43-year-old Ms Dench will fly from Scotland to Africa in a project dubbed the Flight of the Osprey.
She will make the 5,000-mile trip aboard a paramotor – a paraglider with a small propeller engine. The expedition this year will see her cross vast expanses of ocean as she tracks migrating ospreys, often cruising on air currents 3,000 feet above the waves. She said: ‘I need to concentrate really hard to read the topography and calculate where the thermal is, then to trim the wing to ensure I stay in it. Otherwise you can just drop.’
Ms Dench, a distant relative of actress Dame Judi Dench, earned the nickname the Human Swan during a 4,000-mile paramotor flight in 2016 tracking the migration of Bewick’s swans across the Arctic tundra to the UK.
In June Ms Dench began a round-Britain flight for charity Conservation Without Borders, which she cofounded, to highlight the threat of climate change. It ended with the September 18 crash which killed support team friend Dan Burton, 54, near Lochinver in Sutherland.
During the Flight of the Osprey, which is expected to last four months, Ms Dench, a UN ambassador for migratory species, plans to fly at least part of the way with the motor switched off and relying on the same thermals as the birds she’ll track.
Dame Judi said of the venture: ‘I think it is admirable and what a fantastic example at this time, when we are all so concerned about climate change, that Sacha is yet again drawing attention to its consequence.’
Dame Joanna Lumley, one of Ms Dench’s supporters, worked on a documentary on last year’s circumnavigation attempt, the film being dedicated to Mr Burton.