Two men had lucky escapes after separate accidents in the skies.
At Taylors Mistake, near Christchurch, a paraglider suffered spinal and leg injuries after crashing heavily about 4pm.
Paraglider Bill Degen said he'd seen the man flying in the moments leading up to his crash.
"The wind was about 15-20 knots and smooth. He looked to be having a good time up," he said.
In Auckland, the pilot of a light plane crashed in a farm paddock next to the Northern Motorway at Dairy Flat just after 4pm. The CX4 Thatcher aircraft flipped after coming down about 500m short of North Shore Airfield, but the pilot escaped with a head gash and a hand injury. He was taken by ambulance to North Shore Hospital.
