Put everything awayÉget on the radioÉwe're going down! Hot air balloon pilot and Birmingham, Michigan businessman Scott Lorenz issued those commands as he and his two crew members swayed and tilted dangerously close to a mountainside near the Great Wall of China last October.
Unexpected winds were so perilous that Lorenz's only option was to let the air out of his balloon and fall 200 feet to the groundÉhard. Real hard.
Upon touchdown, the three were thrown from the basket, glasses flying off their faces, their bodies hurling and rolling amid boulders and brush. They survived. "God had his hand on us the whole time," says one of the survivors today. "We're lucky we didn't get killed," he adds.
Lorenz looks back on the incredible incident and says that except for watching his two children being born, the emergency landing was the most profound experience in his life. Lorenz, president of Westwind Consulting, a public relations and marketing firm based in Birmingham, had never expected to perform an emergency landing during his most highly anticipated trip. After all, the 40-year-old balloonist had been a pilot for 14 years. And he's never really had anything dangerous happen to him.
A special case
Most excursions are uneventful, he says. "We've even had some yawner trips."
Tedious or precarious, ballooning is almost always exhilarating and that's the main reason Lorenz became a balloonist. That was also the attraction for two of Lorenz's Michigan friends, who agreed to crew for the journey over the Great Wall of China.
"When Scott asked me to go with him I said, sure, because I knew it would be fun and unusual and I had the wherewithal to do it," says 36-year-old crew member Anmar Sarafa of Bloomfield Hills. Sarafa is president of Zaske, Sarafa & Associates, a money management firm in Birmingham. So he and another friend, Mike Franchi, a Plymouth resident and co-owner of Mama LaRosa Foods in Taylor, joined Lorenz in early October for a 10-day vacation to China.
Over the course of the trip, the adventurous trio went up several times in the rainbow-colored balloon co-owned by Lorenz, and Paul and Marion Szilagyi of Boulder, Colorado. They flew over Chinese cornfields, mountains, small farming communities and curious village visitors.
Special visitors
During one ride, they landed in a small village and were an immediate magnet to dozens of children who were not only intrigued by the colorful balloon, but also wanted to fill their hands with the candy treats that the men brought along in honor of their own Halloween traditions.
The 16-balloon gathering, sponsored by the Aero Sports Federation of China, featured balloonists and media from all over the world. Tom Bergeon of Mason, Michigan was the only other US pilot joining balloonists from Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Korea and ten Chinese balloonists.
The federation provided an interpreter, a chase crew and truck, lodging, maps, food and more. All had come to admire from a birds-eye view the 4,164-mile-long Great Wall at about 4,500' MSL.
On the day of the Great Wall flight, all was calmÉor so it seemed. Gorgeous blue skies beckoned the 16 eager balloonists. Kidding each other as they prepared for flight, one crew member joshed: "What are the chances of crashing and burning, Scott?" "Not too much," Lorenz said with a smile. "Mountains? No problem. Power lines? No problem," he quipped. "It really looked good. There was a high pressure system over us at the time, and winds were about 10 knots at the surface," Lorenz recalls. "Our flight plan was to fly over the wall, and take the first available and accessible landing spot," he adds.
Think fast
But after several minutes in flight and crossing the Great Wall at two points, Lorenz attempted to land near a small village in a valley. "As I descended the winds really picked up; I realized that not only was the landing impossible, but the peak staring us in the face required me to hit the burner and Fire Two in order to clear it . We missed the top of that peak by 10 feet," says Lorenz. Dangerous wind shears had developed in the mountainous areas and Lorenz was in the middle of it. As their American flag-draped basked drifted toward another peak, the former Boy Scout had to start thinking fast. "There was no question about itÉwe were in trouble," Lorenz recalls. Gusts plus downdrafts and rotors from the top of the mountain created the conditions that quickly caused the balloon to distort, seeming to rise and fall simultaneously. "I decided to rip out the top, and try to plant it on a small flat spot on the mountain top," he explains. "The balloon dropped straight downÉfast, very fast."
Lorenz also shut off the pilot light so that once they landed there would be no ground fires. Looking at the mountainous configurations ahead of him, Lorenz realized there was no way he could get over the upcoming ridge.
"Even if I heated, heated, heated, heatedÉthere was no way, and, if the throat closed we'd been dead for sure," he said.
"In safety seminars we're all trained for this kind of situation. I equated it to a power line emergency, if you're eye level with them, you don't fly over them. You rip out. It's better than hitting the power lines in flight. If you do hit, you can have fires and explosions. You're dead. But you at least have a chance of surviving a 100-to 200-foot hard hit on the ground," he explains.
No time for fear
But the three never lost their cool, even while descending swiftly to a rocky landing.
"There was no time for the fear factor," says Sarafa. "Mike and I were just basically doing what Scott told us to do. It was happening so fast. You have time for a prayer and that's it," he says. "Scott was really cool, calm, working this thing. "Mike and I were ignorant and that prevented us from being scared. If we had been afraid, we would have been hurt really badly." Like a sling shot, the three flew out of the basket as it collided with the ground. Eyeglasses, shoes and equipment tumbled to thick-brush areas.
"The scene was surreal. I saw the rope caught on Mike's foot and then the balloon was dragging him down the side of the mountain," says Sarafa. He then yelled down to see if he was OK. "I've been better," said Franchi. Lorenz says he looked up and saw the balloon basket go right over this head before it drifted down through a ravine. "It went over the side of a mountain and was gone! A seven-story balloon went completely out of site!" he explains.
It was remarkable that their video camera, tape recorder and camera fell right at their feet, while other items scattered so far from the point of impact that they were never found.
Search ends
Searchers from a helicopter could not find the balloon. It took 10 people three days to locate the balloon. The recovery was completed six days later. To retrieve it, they had to cut down 112 trees and employ 50 men to build a road and 10 men to carry it out at a cost of $3,244 U.S.
Although their jeans were ripped, the wind was knocked out of them, Franchi's forehead suffered a minor gash and all three were sore, there were no apparent major injuries. "How one of us didn't get thrown into one of the many rocks or boulders is beyond me," says Sarafa. Slowly working their way down the ravine to the balloon and basket, Lorenz and Sarafa recovered a drop line and their FM-band radio to talk to their crew. The battery on their aircraft radio burned out the proceeding night while recharging, so they couldn't communicate with other pilots still flying. In order to get a signal from the working radio they walked to the top of the mountain, which is home to snakes and mountain lions. The thorny brush was so thick that at a distance of five feet between them, they couldn't see each other. "We'd go one step, move the branchesÉgo anther step, move the branches," says Lorenz. Because there was no clear way out, the trio decided to wait to be found. "The worst case scenario, I thought we'd have to spend the night on the mountain. The overnight temperatures were in the high 30's and we still had 15 gallons of propane in the balloon; we weren't going to die from exposure," said Lorenz.
Four hours later, their interpreter, Han Zhaofang, and Koji Masuda, a member of Tom Bergeon's balloon crew, finally located the men. "They had walked up one side of a mountain for 1+ hours not even knowing we were there," says Sarafa. "They shouted from a mountain peak at least one mile away to tell us they were sending a villager to help us down," added Sarafa. Says a thankful pilot today from his office: "I am very grateful to Tom & Mickey Bergeon, Han, Koji, Peter and Marc Blaser and untold others who helped direct our rescue. Unfortunately, because it was our last flight and we had to leave for the airport we did not get a chance to discuss the entire affair, not to mention we were pretty shook up." "To top it off," said Lorenz, "I had to give a three- day presentation in Shanghai for a client later the same day." The first question they asked me was: "Other than that, Mr. Scott, how was your flight?
Lorenz first piloted a balloon in China in 1989 in the city of Anyang in Henan Province. He hosted the Chinese Balloon team in the USA for a month-long balloon tour the following year. Lorenz regularly travels to Shanghai, China consulting for a Chinese Hotel Company. As for the balloon, it was determined that the least costly way to handle the matter was to donate the salvageable parts of the balloon to the Aero Sports Federation of China for payment of the recovery and import duty. The Maurer-Noel Insurance Agency paid the insured for a total loss. Look for Lorenz's new Balloon Works balloon, Sun Pirate II, featuring a blazing sun rising on the ocean.
