Posted on 10/09/2007 3:16:19 PM PDT by CedarDave
Four hot air balloon crashes have occurred in separate incidents Tuesday morning, the fourth day of Albuquerque's International Balloon Fiesta.
One crash happened in Rio Rancho at about 8:30 a.m. Two retaining walls were hit in the Loma Vista area just north of High Resort Ball Field. Three people were in the gondola. No one was ejected, but one female passenger was transported to University of New Mexico Hospital with a fractured leg.
The second crash occurred at around 8:45 a.m. near Kim and Saratoga avenues. The balloon hit a two-story house, then crashed in an arroyo. Two women were ejected when the balloon impacted in the arroyo, including a 37-year-old who is six months pregnant. Her water did not break, but she complained of abdominal pain. The other female, in her 20s, was suffering from a possible broken leg.
After the women were ejected, the balloon rose again and knocked an evaporative cooler air-conditioning unit off the roof of a house. The two men who were still inside the balloon eventually were transported to a hospital with injuries.
A third crash occurred shortly after the second one, at Loma Colorado, near the Rio Rancho High School football field. One adult male was hospitalized with minor injuries.
A fourth crash happened east of Loma Colorado. Three people were in the gondola. A female in her 50s was taken by helicopter to the hospital. Two males were taken to the hospital by ground transportation.
Tuesday's incidents follow Monday's fatal balloon accident, where a woman was ejected and fell approximately 60 feet when the balloon gondola she was riding in became entangled in a fiber optic line.
~~snip~~
The Balloon Fiesta ... is the world's largest ballooning event with an average of 700 balloons participating, and is the world's most photographed event.
(Excerpt) Read more at koat.com ...
Tell us ping...
Okey dokey, just marked off Balloon Ride off my Want To Do list.
Yikes. were they having bad winds?
Does anyone know if this is typical? We’ve been wanting to take the kids to see this but I’m not so sure if there’s going to be carnage everywhere.
It’s atypical, but some try to fly when the winds pick up, or they pick up after they are airborne. That and the lessening of available landing sites due to rapid urbanization is making the ABQ event more dangerous. Those of us who have been around a while remember when open space was all over the area.
The most spectacular non-fatal crash was into the high (70 story, 670 ft.) 50,000-watt KKOB radio tower in 2004. The balloon had two children (14 and 10 years) who climbed from the balloon to the tower without lifelines and then started down the ladder, again without lifelines. They were met by a utility company journeyman lineman who volunteered to go up and safely escort them down. He met them after climbing 30 stories on the exposed ladder. Talk about brave ...
http://www.abqjournal.com/balloon/239084metro10-11-04.htm
I see you’re from NM. I have been to Albuquerque several times. Is it my imagination or is it the ugliest city in the U.S.? We were there this past spring, and I wish I had taken pictures it was so ugly. It’s hard to describe to people just what it’s like! I’ve been there several times, in different parts of the city and have found it to be the same everywhere. If you’ll point me in the direction of a pretty part of town, I’ll gladly check it out the next time we go through there!
Trash-filled vacant lots, brown fields full of weeds, broken down cars on blocks, busted beer bottles on roadside shoulders and pit bulls tied to trees kind of grow on you, don’t you agree Slim?
But graffiti has largely been curbed due to Mayor Marty.
(O.k., so I’m also describing Hobbs ...)
Sigh... We only arrived here tonight but we have been hearing of the incidents all the way here. So far, we don't have much information as all of it is conflicting including the news reports. I will be speaking to an FAA guy hopefully Wednesday that is here to deal with stuff like this. He should have the real scoop.
I'm off to crash... we have been on the road since Saturday afternoon driving here.
This is important to me. I need to know if this was silly pilot decisions or if Fiesta should have canceled the flights because of wind. Of course, everything comes down to pilot discretion, but here, pilots only have the information that is given to them on the field by Fiesta, meteorological and FAA authorities. I have been here though when it seemed to little ol' me that the flight/glow should have been canceled, but wasn't because of a desire by organizers to keep spectators on the field.
Again, if people flew under a 'Pilots discretion' permission, it is the pilots fault not the organizers.
Personally, I think this stuff should NOT be happening. I will report back soon. I need to scope out conditions here myself before I can make a definitive judgment. My husbands and pilots lives depend on good judgment.
Now, I am really crashing! Have to be up in about 4 hours.
I’ll admit that ‘Burque is about the funkiest city I’ve ever seen. It’s a real patchwork, with some very nice homes and lots (as in Ridgecrest near UNM) right next to really crappy neighborhoods. My favorite weird place is what I call “The Prestegious North Valley” - there’s some really nice spots there, but about a bazillion trailers, sheet metal shop, and vacant lots.
It’s a weird one. The whole state is a bit weird. When we were looking for a place to live in the East Mountains, we
saw more strange houses than you could believe. It was like the entire place was built by folks that had taken three hits of acid, watched “The Mosquito Coast” and grabbed power tools.
If you want a laugh, go to www.mystrangenewmexico.com and check out the article “The Hippies of Placitas”.
Thanks for confirming that it wasn’t some sort of weird desert mirage! LOL Next time I come through, I’ll be sure to have my camera handy!
My wife and I attended the ABQ Hot Air Balloon festival back in 1987, or maybe it was 1988; anyway, we went aloft in a balloon sponsored by a vendor of a company I worked with at that time. Remarkable experience, sort of like being in a giant gum ball machine with all the colorful balloons launching at the same time. Nearly twenty years ago there was still a fair amount of open area available to land the balloons ... haven't visited ABQ in recent years so can't make the comparison.
It’s funny but I never got off the interstate as I drove through the area but from that limited point of view Albuquerque looked very nice to me.
Albuquerque is paradise compared to El Paso!!! Drive in from Carlsbad on US 62/180 sometime. Of course, leaving is fun too with the ICE checkpoints: “Where were you born, Senor.”
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