Shot a Scarry Accident at the Balloon Fiesta this Morning

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

This is the BIG Balloon Meet in Albuquerque that has over 500 balloons launching in it on some days. This morning they were having a competition where the balloonists launch off site and attempt to come over the Fiesta Grounds and drop bean bags ( a certain # is given to each team) on giant playing card targets or a large X (it is the teams choice when they pass over as to what they aim for) to win cash and other prizes.

Well as one balloon approached the site they came in too low and hit the top of a portable building/tent like structure with the bottom of their basket which caused the passenger to tumble out about 25 ft to the ground- missed some table and chairs nearby. Well loosing this ballast of about 200 lbs caused the balloon to rise dramatically over just a few seconds to aproximately 250 and as high as possibley 300 ft where the pilot elected to take a drastic move to pull open her crown vent which sent her dropping to the ground faster than she had risen.

The man has a hip injury while it looks like she was just jarred very heavily but both have been sent to the hospital this morning.

I was about 100 ft or so from where the man fell and about 200 from where she hard landed.

http://www.pbase.com/pgkps/balloonis...nt_fiesta_2009

[groovyone]

That's pretty wild!

[Yama]

Good thing nobody was seriously injured, and it looks like there were plenty of good photo ops.

I did notice a lot of dust on those images.

[Crashoran]

That right there is why I'm afraid of flying in those.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Yeah I need to clean that cameras sensor. Now in a few shots you actually are seeing the beanbags with streamers that are being thrown at the targets-the balloonists flying over were still competing for the $ and prizes while this was going on.

Over 20 pilots decided not to fly this morning- winds now this afternoon are gusting past 30mph which is a no no for balloons-then they were about 5-8 mph at ground level but a bit higher at elevations.

[Bovineguy]

Wow, that's a coincidence, I was just reading this Balloon Mishaps Cause Injuries then I come over here and read this.

[hotshot38]

Just saw the footage on the nightly news.