To avoid any damage to the stadium grass, the crew had to carry in all the balloon equipment. In the process, they left behind something that could have warned them about the wind outside the stadium: the helium bottle. As they were shielded by the surrounding structure, they felt no wind on the ground, but some meters above, things were different. To understand the micro-meteorology of this environment, imagine very wet and cold grass on a sunny day, with the metallic roofs over the seats also being warmed... have you ever heard the term ‘erratic thermal’?
They had to tether with very long ropes to climb high enough to film most of the stadium, so from the four 17mm diameter, 30m (90 feet) long ropes, the crew made two ropes, each one 60m (180 feet) long.
After a nice inflation, the cameraman got into the basket and they decided to climb some meters to test the ropes, etc..., but the people involved in the filming didn’t let them see that the ropes were very long! When the balloon (a 105, not a hopper) reached the upper airstream and began to climb fast, due to false lift, one of his crew members, also a 105 (Kg)(230 pounds), grabbed one of the two ropes very firmly and began to climb with them. His added weight had no effect on the vertical speed of the balloon.
Suddenly the upwind rope went tight and the Stubai 2500 Kg carabiner became history.The crew man fell about 7 meters (22 feet) to the soft ground, and needed medical attention for some days, but was all right.
Imagine a balloon being catapulted over one of the stadium roofs, tied to the ground by only one long rope! It stopped with the basket less than one meter from the outside edge of the roof and the envelope hanging over the wall of the stadium... One more meter of rope and it would have been fatal. The incident remains with us as a bad experience that will, at least, teach us about keeping alert even on those ‘nearly perfect’ days...
Tethering a balloon is more dangerous than free flight because:
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