On Saturday, strong winds blew a hot air balloon into people and buildings at the fairgrounds, injuring several people. Williams, AZ.
The 4th Annual Independence Day Craft Fair, benefiting Habitat for Humanity in the Williams Area, started off well, but just before noon on July 6, high winds blew away the propane-laden hot air balloon.
The wind blew the balloons to the ground, injuring several people, and the balloons also damaged cars, lampposts and electrical wiring, blocking roads.
Witnesses said a young Marine and a girl who were part of a group helping with the balloon flight were injured, while a woman holding the rope sustained serious injuries to her arm and required treatment at a trauma center.
“All were transported to Flagstaff Medical Center. Injuries included an 8-year-old female who suffered a broken thumb and rope burns, a 15-year-old male who suffered back and neck injuries, and an adult female who suffered abrasions,” Williams police said in a news release.
So what caused the balloon to fly into the sky?
“The pilot, who identified himself as Dwayne Osborne, reported initial wind speeds were approximately 7-8 mph, but a sudden hot air current caused wind speeds to increase to 40-50 mph, causing the balloon to detach from its anchor point and crash into a nearby building and vehicle. There were no passengers in the balloon,” Williams police said.
The Federal Aviation Administration was notified of the incident.
No one was in the balloon's basket, but the fair was offering tethered hot air balloon rides before the incident.
“These are largely unpredictable, but common occurrences.”
Brian Klimowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Flagstaff, said balloon flights are forecast to be safe.
“Yesterday's forecast was calling for winds of 10 mph up to 25 mph and warmth. Nothing in this forecast would stop people from going on a hot air balloon ride,” he said.
Balloon expert Pat Cannon agrees.
“When the weather is nice and the wind is light, we have a chance to inflate the balloons, and we do that. We don't usually fly balloons during the day, but we can at least inflate them during the day for advertising purposes or whatever.”
But then a dust storm hit the area.
Klimovsky says the weather phenomenon occurs regularly on sunny days in this climate.
“But they cannot be detected by our radar or ground-based instruments, so they are a common, albeit largely unpredictable, occurrence,” Klimovsky said.
Cannon said he has experienced the relentless nature of dust storms before.
“If it shapes up like what happened in my case many years ago, it will spin the balloon as it's lying on the ground. In fact, the mouth of the balloon wasn't even open, it was just lying on the ground, but it picked it up, spun it around and threw it back on the ground again,” Cannon said.
Cannon said hot air balloon rides are not dangerous, but urged people to remain vigilant if attending hot air balloon events.
“Even if it's just an inflated balloon coming towards you, that still means tonnes of material moving through the air, so you need to be careful,” he said.
