Spectators watched in horror as a hot air balloon plunged to the earth during the BalloonFest in Anderson Sunday morning. Since then, the Anderson Independent-Mail reports the ballooning community is rallying around the crash victim and his family.
Russell Mattison knew right away something terrible was happening above him. "I said he is in trouble. He is in serious trouble," Mattison recalled. He watched as the hot air balloon crashed towards the ground. "You could see the flames shoot through the balloon and he was trying to inflate it back up but it wouldn't," he said.
Anderson firefighters also saw the hot air balloon fall. "First thought was what is that? Then in a matter of a couple seconds, we realized it was a balloon basically free falling," Jack Abraham said.
Crews arrived at South McDuffie Street within a minute. They found the balloon in a tree and the pilot on the ground.
Miraculously, Pilot Chuck Walz survived. Investigators believe the tree broke the Michigan balloonist fall.
Walz fell about twelve feet from the tree and is now recovering at the hospital.
AnMed officials told us on Monday afternoon Walz is still in intensive care and in Fair condition.
"I never dreamed that a balloon would fall out of the sky like that," Mattison said.
The FAA is investigating the crash. They will be analyzing both the balloon equipment and the weather to see if either played a role in the accident.
Officials say the BalloonFest will continue as planned.
As soon as the ballooning community found out, calls started almost immediately, reports from the Anderson Independent-Mail stated.
“We are a small family,” said Maury Sullivan, the safety officer for the Balloon Federation of America's National Championships.
Sullivan said as soon as officials realized which balloonist was injured, they called his wife, in Atlanta visiting family. And then they asked another pilot, Gary Heavin of Curves International, if he could fly the company’s jet to Atlanta to pick Walz’s wife up and bring her to Anderson.
He didn’t hesitate, Sullivan said.
The Anderson Independent-Mail reported the crash has changed the atmosphere at the LaQuinta Inn on Clemson Boulevard in Anderson, where most of the pilots are staying during the competition.
“I think everybody is consoling each other,” Sullivan said.
Learn more about hot air balloon flight.
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