Dear Editor,
A normally quiet autumn morning in Arão on October 19, at 9.40am – following a night of welcome heavy rains – the stillness broken by a “whoosh whoosh” noise. In Canada, this would have reminded me of a bear’s heavy breathing as he analysed my garbage bin.
But no, a quick peek out of the window and, lo and behold, a colourful balloon drifting by very low in the gorge along our property. So low in fact that we couldn’t see the basket nor its occupants, only the upper half of the balloon.
A quick scramble for appropriate footwear, the camera and a dash up to the roof terrace to shoot away at this event. By this time the balloon had exited the gorge some 300 metres further south, managed to cross the road (CM1068), and came to rest a further hundred metres on some little used farmland. This was a wise decision as the next obstacle not more than a further 100 metres away was an EDP power line and a high tension line carrying power to Lagos and points west (I presume).
Clearly, the “G” registered balloon, was flying way too low, or was running out of gas, and perhaps the backup cannister already used up or empty (assuming there was one).
So a lucky escape for the occupants who were rapidly recuperated with their balloon by the recovery vehicle which arrived quickly on site.
I thought nothing more of this until later in the day when I noticed my telephone landline was “out”. A call to the PT explained that due to the “heavy rains the main line was down” and once this was repaired each house line would be checked and restored Monday morning.
I was fortunate to get a PT man out Saturday afternoon who excitedly explained to me that the lines were knocked down and a telephone pole had been snapped off a metre from the top.
It suddenly dawned on me that the only explanation was that the low flying balloon had struck the telephone pole.
All is fixed now since the PT pole crew came Monday afternoon, replaced the severed pole on the property next to ours and re-checked and repaired the connections on the four poles on either side of the broken one.
I’d be curious to see the entry in the pilot’s log book for this particular flight. Certainly he’ll want to review his “airmanship” procedures.
I also wonder if he did the right thing and advised the PT of this incident? We’ll see if there are any further developments to this fortunately minor “incident” which could have ended otherwise.
Eric Van Roechoudt
By email
