Hot air balloon descent (Source: KLTV News Staff)One person was taken to an East Texas hospital today after his hot air balloon made a hard landing. Organizers with the Great Texas balloon race say 59-year-old Dale Wong of California was piloting the balloon when it went down. His injuries are not life-threatening.
This wasn't the only incident involving hot air balloons today. Officials say two other balloons bumped each other and went down in a field. Both of those pilots got up and walked away unharmed.
This all happened in north Longview.
The first balloon came down near Sam Page Road, and the other two came down close to Highway 259, north of Hawkins Parkway.
As motorists stopped along Highway 259 near the Wellington Grande apartments to watch balloons fly over, a tense scene unfolded as onlookers shot
cellphone video.
"Once they started going back up, the balloons touched, which was very odd. Then they both came down hard. Something is wrong," says witness Rick
Lippitz.
"I noticed they were coming down really fast, and actually were afraid they were going to hit the power lines right over here when they went down.
It was a little bit scary, there was two coming down together but there were more coming over before and after," says witness Krista Salter.
Longview fire and EMT personnel responded to Wong's hard landing.
"This pilot had a hard landing. There was potential for some lower body extremity injuries; we did transport the pilot to a local facility for further
treatment," says Longview Fire Marshal Johnny Zackary.
But the pilots may have been trying to get down before getting too close to nearby power lines, being experts at ditching hard, and sometimes having
to land in small spaces.
The two pilots downed on 259 walked away with no injuries. Johnny Zackary says there's also another problem for pilots in recent days.
There have been incidents with remote drones getting too close to the balloons in flight.
Zackary says anyone caught flying drones around the balloons could face serious consequences.