Paraglider Dies Thanksgiving Day

Former Santa Barbara paragliding instructor and principal at Adams Elementary School Marjorie Variano was found dead at the base of a cliff below La Cumbre Peak on Thanksgiving Day. She’d been paragliding with a group headed for Parma Park, but when she did not land, they began searching for her, finally locating a downed airfoil at the bottom of a cliff 1,500 feet below the peak at around 1:15 p.m.

The steep box canyon made the location unsafe for helicopter approach, and an Air Support Unit copter lowered a County Fire paramedic down-canyon. It took him an hour to hike to her spot and verify that Variano had died. The approach of nightfall postponed operations until Friday morning, when about a dozen Search and Rescue volunteers with climbing gear and brush-cutting equipment were lowered to a shelf above the body. The location required a stretcher, ropes, hoist, and helicopter to carry Variano out, as well as the rescue team.

A veteran hang-gliding and paragliding instructor, Marge Variano had taught for about five years at Eagle Paragliding, said owner Rob Sporrer. He was hoping to recover her variometer from the Sheriff’s Office, which contained GPS information that could track her last flight and possibly explain what happened. Paragliding was a passion for Variano, who made trips to Mexico and Colombia with groups, Sporrer said, and would take books and crayons with her for the kids.