The FAA could prolly come up with something, but that seems stupid. The “craft” was never intended to fly.
I’d be looking at civil damages, not criminal charges. That balloon cost beaucoup $$ to chase, thinking the child was aboard.
I think there may be some criminal child abuse charges here, when all the investigating is done. Something is WAY wrong in this family. They’ve apparently dragged their kids into hurricanes as part of their “storm-chasing” obsession, and it now appears that the 6 year old was bullied into participating in a scam that tied up huge amounts of emergency personnel for hours. They were dragging that poor kid around to media interviews, where he threw up twice — both times when the question of why he didn’t come out of hiding was posed. Either the kid was genuinely ill with a stomach flu or something, in which case one vomiting episode should have been the cue to stop dragging him around to media interviews, or the vomiting was due to psychological stress in a kid who’s afraid of getting in trouble for not sticking to lies his father told him to tell. These kids are not living in a situation which is safe for their physical or psychological well-being.
For sure! - But what we don't know is just who it was that said to the authorities that the kid was aboard.
These assets were already paid for whether or not they were chasing balloons or eating donuts.