A short interview with the owner of a hot air balloon that landed in someone’s backyard

Well, in this case, we couldn’t even get the balloon to the street on either side of the neighborhood. This backyard was large enough for the basket to land without the balloon being in danger of crashing into the house. It was an opportunity to land safely before we ran out of fuel to land. That’s why that backyard was in that location. Other options were less safe.

What is the process of lowering the balloon safely from this height?

Well, it’s very simple. The hot air causes the balloon to rise. We let the balloon cool, or we let out some hot air – we go down. Leadership comes from the wind. So we can control the up and down very expertly, as you can see. But left and right, it’s all because of the wind.

In this case, there was no wind for a long period of time, which is why the pilot landed where he did.

Can I ask a stupid question then? If you can’t control which direction you’re going, how do you chart a course for hot air balloon flights in the first place?

Well, sure. So balloons move with the wind. We look at the forecast to see what winds are expected. We use these very sophisticated pieces of instrumentation, called helium balloons, on the morning of the flight, to see what the actual wind conditions are. Helium balloons rise at a rate of 300 feet per minute, so by watching the balloon rise, using a stop watch and compass, we get an idea of ​​what the actual wind is doing at the time of launch.

Next, we choose a launch site where we think we will land at the end of the hour. We are reverse engineering the entire journey. In this case, the wind conditions changed dramatically, and so the pilot ended up over that neighborhood and unable to reach his intended landing spot.

Our ground crew will then follow the balloon with their own chase vehicles and be there to help catch the balloon, manage the balloon, pack it up and return it to home base.

When you first received a report from the ground crew saying, “Hey, this balloon is stuck,” what was your reaction in that moment?

I trust the pilot’s skills. So my reaction was that the pilot did what was appropriate and correct, because the only other option was that he could have continued to fly on low fuel to the point where he did not have enough to control his descent. For him, landing in this backyard without damaging any property or endangering any of our passengers was the right decision.

How often does this kind of thing happen, in your experience?

It’s rare. It’s very rare.

Has anyone requested a refund? I feel compelled to ask.

Just the opposite. They want to go back and fly with the same pilot again. They thought it was very safe and explained what was happening and why it was happening. Everyone wanted to do it again.