Hot air balloon pilot falls to his death with passengers on board, Vermont police say
A hot air balloon pilot was killed Thursday after becoming trapped under the basket as the balloon ascended, according to law enforcement.
He fell in a field “from a height,” police said. Three passengers were still on board.
The incident occurred in eastern Vermont, just shy of the New Hampshire border. Troopers with the Vermont State Police were notified at 7:45 p.m., police said in a news release.
The pilot’s name has not been released.
According to the release, the pilot and four passenger took off some time in the late afternoon from Post Mills Airport, a small private airport in Vermont. Police said the balloon descended “some time later” and “briefly touched down in a field.”
“When contact was made with the ground, the basket tipped, and a passenger fell out,” Vermont State Police said.
The pilot then got “entangled in gear affixed to the balloon” and became trapped under the basket as it went back up, police said. He eventually fell, landing in a field off Waits River Road.
He was pronounced dead on the scene, according to the release.
The balloon, meanwhile, traveled another 1.5 miles across the New Hampshire border before getting stuck in a grove of trees in the town of Piermont, police said.
The three remaining passengers were able to climb down to safety. None of the four were injured in the accident.
Police said the pilot’s body has been sent to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington for an autopsy to determine his cause of death. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.
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