Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

3 Hot Air Balloons in Wyoming Crash Into Ground

“You didn’t know when it was going to stop,” said one passenger.

Video
bars
0:00/0:53
-0:00

transcript

3 Hot Air Balloons Crash in Wyoming

Video shows the aftermath of a tourist hot air balloon crash after a strong gust of wind threw the balloons out of control.

“Coming out — don’t step on me!” “Oh my God — I’m fine. I’m fine.” [crying] “We’ve got an injury over here.” “Is anything broken? We just crashed. Our hot air balloon just crashed. Oh my gosh. Are you OK, my family? Oh my gosh. When good hot air ballon rides go bad.”

Video player loading
Video shows the aftermath of a tourist hot air balloon crash after a strong gust of wind threw the balloons out of control.

For 45 minutes, Clinton Phillips and his family soared in a hot-air balloon Monday morning, high above Jackson Hole, a bucolic mountain valley in Wyoming that is popular with tourists.

“This is the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a family,” he recalled thinking. Then, a strong gust of wind threw Mr. Phillips’s balloon out of control. “I looked past my wife and I just screamed, ‘Brace for impact!’” he said.

After that impact, when they rolled out of the balloon, Mr. Phillips said everyone in his family was limping; his son thought he’d had a concussion, and his wife’s ribs were broken.

The balloon carrying Mr. Philips and 20 others was one of three hot air balloons owned by the same company to crash on Monday morning about the same time, officials said.

The precise number of people injured was unclear. The local sheriff’s office said “multiple victims” were taken to hospitals for treatment. Mr. Phillips said his family planned to seek medical care on their own. At least one victim was flown to a hospital in Idaho Falls, according to The Associated Press. The authorities did not report any fatalities on Monday.

The president of the balloon company said that they were carrying 38 passengers total.

Image
Clinton Phillips, right, with his children and fellow passengers.Credit...Jade Phillips
Image
“For 45 minutes, it was extraordinary,” Mr. Phillips said.Credit...Clinton Phillips

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crashes, according to Sheriff Matt Carr of Teton County.

Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the F.A.A. said “each balloon landed hard under unknown circumstances in Teton Village” shortly before 8 a.m. Messages left for the N.T.S.B. were not immediately returned.

The three balloons crashed across an area that was approximately one-third of a mile, the sheriff said in a statement.

“I was dragged, slamming into the ground four times, for 200 yards,” said Mr. Phillips. “You didn’t know when it was going to stop.”

In an interview Monday night, the president of Wyoming Balloon Company, the tour company that owns the balloons, said that they made “high-wind landings” in response to a sudden wind gust.

The forecast had called for clear conditions and “light winds,” said the company president, Andrew Breffeilh. The wind gusts were “outside the forecast,” he said.

“High-wind landings happen every day,” Mr. Breffeilh said.

“Every high-wind landing looks like a crash,” he added. “It skids and bounces.”

But Monday’s landings were more severe, he said. The winds were so strong that “it took us 300 feet to stop after I opened up the valve” in the balloon, he said. “That’s a pretty long drag.”

“Considering the conditions we were in, there could have been worse results in winds that strong,” he said.

Image
Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr and Investigative Sgt. Clay Platt examined the southernmost of three balloons that crashed during a flight near Teton Village, Wyo., on Monday.Credit...Bradly J. Boner/Jackson Hole News & Guide, via Associated Press

One of Mr. Phillips’s daughters fainted, he said. Another daughter, who because of a previous incident can use only one of her arms, managed to stay inside the balloon only because she was squashed under fellow passengers.

Mr. Phillips’s son had to push against the ground as they were skidding to keep himself in the balloon.

“His arm could have been ripped off,” Mr. Phillips said. “If anyone had fallen out, I think they would have been killed, because the cage is so hard and heavy, it would have crushed you.”

In the interview, Mr. Breffeilh initially declined to characterize what happened on Monday as a “crash.” Later, he said, “You can call it what you want. People were injured.”

Typically landings are so smooth “you may not feel the touchdown,” Mr. Breffeilh said.

He said his company had never had a crash in 31 years of operating. The passengers on Monday, he said, “were all scared.”

“The most important thing is to get them down as quickly and safely as possible,” Mr. Breffeilh said.

It was not clear when balloons from the company would lift off again. Mr. Breffeilh said he was “considering a stand-down for some period of time in order to learn from what happened today” and to cooperate with federal investigations.

Azi Paybarah is a reporter covering breaking news, based in New York. Before joining The Times in 2018 he covered politics for WNYC and The New York Observer. He helped launch the website that later became Politico New York and co-founded the FAQ NYC podcast. He is a lifelong New Yorker and graduate of the University at Albany. More about Azi Paybarah

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: High Winds Send 3 Hot Air Balloons Crashing to the Ground. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT