prevention. it s a lot of fun. we all have a grand time doing it. it s a good excuse to be a kid again. and at the same time preventing fires. but during a 2004 flight at the albuquerque international balloon fiesta, ironically it s the friendly face of smokey bear at the center of a catastrophe. well, it was like any other day. it was the last day of the fiesta here. the weather was as predictable as it could be. they had predicted calm breezes, and that s the way it started. bill has two young passengers in his balloon, 14-year-old troy wells and 10-year-old aaron whitaker. on that particular morning, we had what you call microbursts or wind shears that just come out of nowhere. a sudden wind that just fouled everything up that morning. a spectator on the ground captures the moment when the
consummate symbol of fire prevention. it s a lot of fun. we all have a grand time doing it. it s a good excuse to be a kid again. and at the same time preventing fires. but during a 2004 flight at the albuquerque international balloon fiesta, ironically it s the friendly face of smokey bear at the center of a catastrophe. well, it was like any other day. it was the last day of the fiesta here. the weather was as predictable as it could be. they had predicted calm breezes, and that s the way it started. bill has two young passengers in his balloon, 14-year-old troy wells and 10-year-old aaron whitaker. on that particular morning, we had what you call microbursts or wind shears that just come out of nowhere. a sudden wind that just fouled everything up that morning.
on flight aware as well. the flight comes in from the northwest. this is the way it came in from this direction. it flies along the coast. once it makes its way to san francisco it spins around and banks to the left and approaches the runway from the southeast. it generally does that because of the potential wind shears or just because of the topography there? i m not an expert on this but part of it is the lay out. you can see how they brought out the runways in this direction. there is a prevailing wind that comes in from the northwest. a lot of times, and we had it today. this prevailing wind creates a little lift in the nose. sometimes it s only 11 miles per hour. but sometimes there is a little bit of lift. obviously this is where we had impact. the question is now that we know weather is not the case what caused this plane, operator error or mechanical failure or whatever. but conditions, they should be able to put this to rest right
forester with the u.s. forest service. for the past 15 years, he s piloted a hot air balloon modeled after smokey bear, the consummate symbol of fire prevention. it s a lot of fun. we all have a grand time doing it. it s a good excuse to be a kid again. and at the same time preventing fires. but during a 2004 flight at the albuquerque international balloon fiesta, ironically it s the friendly face of smokey bear at the center of a catastrophe. well, it was like any other day. it was the last day of the fiesta here. the weather was as predictable as it could be. they had predicted calm breezes, and that s the way it started. bill has two young passengers in his balloon, 14-year-old troy wells and 10-year-old aaron whitaker. on that particular morning, we had what you call microbursts or wind shears that just come out of nowhere. a sudden wind that just fouled everything up that morning.
whitaker. on that particular morning, we had what you call microbursts or wind shears that just come out of nowhere. a sudden wind that just fouled everything up that morning. a spectator on the ground captures the moment when the smokey balloon is driven off course by a 60-mile-an-hour blast of wind. there s smokey up there. despite bill s desperate efforts, there s no way to avoid a 700-foot radio transmission tower. my first thought was to get over it. i had no option except to go up. can t steer a balloon. bill fires his burners past their safety limit, trying in vain to fight the wind, but he can t rise fast enough to clear the tower. oh, he hit the tower. he s on the tower. when we hit the tower, the balloon exploded. virtually. and it was like hearing an amplified scream of a mad woman