Well, in this case, we couldn’t get the balloon to reach the street on either side of the neighborhood. That particular backyard was large enough that the basket could land without the balloon being in danger of hitting the house. This stood a better chance of landing safely before we ran out of fuel to land. So that’s why it was the backyard at that place. Other options were less safe.
What is the procedure to bring down a balloon safely from such a height?
Well, it’s very simple. The hot air causes the balloon to rise. Let the balloon cool, or let some hot air out – down we go. Guidance comes from the wind. So we can control the up and down very efficiently, as you can see. But left and right, he is completely out of the air.
In this case, there was no wind for a long period of time, and that is why the pilot landed where he did.
So can I ask a stupid question? If you can’t directionally control where you’re going, how do you plot a course for balloon flights in the first place?
OK sure. Therefore balloons move with the wind. We look at the forecast to know what the expected winds are. We use these extremely sophisticated pieces of equipment, called helium balloons, on the morning of the flight to see what the actual wind conditions are. Those helium balloons rise at a rate of 300 feet per minute, so by watching the balloon rise with our stopwatch and compass, we get an idea of what the actual winds are doing at the time of launch.
After that, we choose our launch site where we think we’ll land at the end of an hour. We reverse engineer the entire flight. In this case, the wind conditions changed dramatically, and thus the pilot overshot that neighborhood and was not able to reach his intended landing location.
And then our ground crew will follow the balloon with their pursuit vehicles to help capture the balloon, manage the balloon, pack it up, and return it to home base.
When you first got the report from the ground crew saying, ‘Hey, this balloon is stuck,’ what was your reaction at that moment?
I have confidence in the pilot’s skill. So my response was that the pilot did what was reasonable and right, because the only other option is that he could have flown with less fuel to the point where he didn’t have enough fuel to control his landing. It was the right decision for him to get into that backyard without damaging any property or putting any of our passengers at risk.
How often does this type of thing happen in your experience?
it’s rare. This is very rare.
Did anyone ask for a refund? I feel obliged to ask.
Quite the contrary. They want to go back and fly again with the same pilot. They thought he was very safe and explained what was happening and why. Everyone wanted to do it again.
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