A hot-air balloon crashed into power lines during the Dutchess County Balloon Festival in NY this past weekend. Click below for the full story.
A balloonist and his passengers escaped injury Saturday after a puff of wind pushed their inflatable into electric lines.
The hot-air balloon, one of about a dozen propane-powered craft taking part in the annual Dutchess County Balloon Festival, became caught in a breeze as it returned to terra firma in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
“As we got on the ground there was a breeze coming from the river,” pilot Bill Hughes told the Daily News. “It pushed over the top of the balloon, which touched the power lines.”
“It wasn’t any kind of serious incident,” he added.
The dramatic descent ended a flight that began about a half hour earlier about two miles up-river near Marist College, where Hughes launched his bright blue balloon on day two of the three-day festival.
Hughes, a 75-year-old former Navy pilot who has helmed balloons professionally for nearly 40 years, says he and two passengers, whose identities were not immediately available, had an uneventul ride along the Hudson River at altitudes ranging from 50 feet to 1,000 feet en route to their destination at the foot of Poughkeepsie’s Main Street.
“I intended to land in the park, but I would have rather touched down farther from where the power lines are,” Hughes said.
A photographer who watched the flight from a walkway over the river about a half mile north of the landing site said Hughes’ balloon appeared to swerve toward the lines at touchdown.
“The balloon looked like it was going toward the next bridge, then veered left, toward commercial buildings and electric wires,” Anthony Donofrio told the Daily News. Donofrio, who photographed the landing, says the deflated balloon draped over the basket and blocked his view of the pilot and passengers.
For his part, Hughes says he looks forward to lifting off for the festival’s final day on Sunday.
“Tomorrow morning we’re going back out,” he added.
