Safety in Hot Air Balloon

The Friday evening sunset balloon ride over Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, B.C., was supposed to be a birthday gift for a woman who would turn 69 the following day. Instead, the hot air balloon burst into flames and the woman had to jump for her life. She was lucky to be alive but suffered broken ribs and a broken shoulder.

Two others, a mother and her adult daughter, were not able to jump and were killed when the burning balloon first rose 400 feet into the air, exploded, and then fell like a stone to the earth below. The balloon plunged into a trailer park and burned three trailers.

There were 12 passengers and one pilot in the balloon when the accident occurred. Only two were not able to escape. The 10 other passengers and the pilot were able to jump, but all of them suffered serious injuries. Many of the people had their clothes on fire when they jumped from the balloon.

An investigator of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said that the balloon was preparing to launch when, for reasons still unknown, fire suddenly erupted. At that time, the balloon was about twenty feet above ground. The pilot told the passengers to hurry out of the basket.

As passengers jumped off the basket, the balloon became lighter and rose higher in the air. The balloon then broke free from its tethers with three passengers still inside. One more woman jumped from about 45 feet. She was the last one out before the balloon exploded.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated. The pilot was the owner and operator of the balloon charters company that operated the hot-air balloon. There were other balloons already in flight when the accident occurred.

The accident followed another hot-air balloon crash in Winnipeg two weeks earlier, when a balloon with a dozen passengers crash-landed in a farm. The balloon bounced several times before bursting into flames. No one was killed in this accident although two people suffered serious injuries.

The last woman who jumped out of the balloon in Saturday’s accident said that while she was on her way down she tried to think of the best way to fall. She said she landed like a cat. Her ankles, heels, and a few ribs were broken in the landing.

If you should ever find yourself in that situation where you have to jump from way up, remember not to make the knees rigid and roll over immediately when you hit the ground.