Balloonists End Up in Sea Just Short of Goal

Two adventurers attempting the world’s first transatlantic crossing in a hot-air balloon jumped into the sea Friday before their craft ditched just two miles off the western coast of Scotland.

“It’s just wonderful to be alive,” declared pop music tycoon Richard Branson, 36, after he and Per Lindstrand, 38, designer of the 21-story-tall silver-and-black balloon, were rescued.

Branson said the two men had thrown themselves from the balloon’s capsule as it was “being hurtled through the water . . . (at) a tremendous speed” after trying to land on a Scottish beach.

Robin Batchelor, chief of the flight’s operations in London, said the the balloon’s pressurized gondola came down about 7 p.m., local time, in the Irish Sea, two miles from the Mull of Kintyre on the Scottish coast.

Question Unanswered

Speaking by telephone with the British Broadcasting Corp., Branson related the dramatic end to their daring 34-hour journey that left unanswered the question of whether they had officially completed the first transatlantic journey in a hot-air balloon. Three other Atlantic crossings have been made by helium-filled balloons.

Branson, head of Virgin Atlantic Airways and a British entertainment conglomerate, said he and Lindstrand were unhurt. The two men were picked up by rescue ships and taken to a hospital in Kilmarnock, 17 miles south of Glasgow.

He said Lindstrand spent 2 1/2 hours in the water fighting a heavy current with no life raft. “He was picked up just in time,” Branson said. “Per’s not so good, but he will be fine by tomorrow (this) morning.”

Lindstrand was born in Sweden but now lives in Britain.

Radioed Distress Call

A coast guard report said Branson radioed a distress call after the capsule first bounced off the water. It said the balloon’s flotation bags, designed to inflate automatically if the capsule came down in the sea, were ripped by the impact.

Reporters and photographers flew over the scene and said the huge balloon was on its side in the water. The craft had crossed the Irish coast Friday morning at a speed of 86 m.p.h.

Branson, in the BBC interview from his hospital bed, said: “It wasn’t initially an emergency. We found that we got fairly stuck over Northern Ireland above a very low cloud base.”

In an attempt to land on a beach, a button that should have released the capsule from the balloon failed to work, he said.

“So the next thing we found ourselves being hurtled through the water something like 100 miles an hour, a tremendous speed, across the water with water coming in to the capsule and we climbed out onto the roof and the capsule started rising.

“Per threw himself off at about 60 feet and I decided to stay with the capsule,” he said.

Branson said he prepared to parachute and then hesitated. But he jumped as the capsule struck the water again and was rescued by a military helicopter.

‘Per Was Still in the Sea’

“Fortunately, I was picked up and managed to tell other people that Per was still in the sea.” Lindstrand was rescued by men in a high-speed dinghy.

At the hospital, Branson hugged his two children, Sam, 2, and Holly, 5, and said he would not put his family through such an ordeal again.

Branson and Lindstrand had been expected to land near Kilmarnock close to the western coast of Scotland at around 11 a.m. PDT, Rupert Saunders, a spokesman at the flight’s control center in London, said. Had they succeeded, it would have meant they completed their journey in about half the time they had planned.

Their estimated time and place of arrival had changed throughout the day as weather conditions switched.

The men first sighted land, the northwest Irish coast, Friday morning, traveling at 86 m.p.h. and an altitude of 27,000 feet.

“I’m feeling elated,” Branson radioed in a linkup with Independent Television News at that time. “It has been a marvelous trip . . . . “

There were conflicting reports if a record would be claimed for Branson’s balloon, the Virgin Atlantic Flyer.

Record ‘Not That Important’

“I’m not sure whether we got the record or not,” Branson told a hospital news conference. “We did sort of touch down briefly in Ireland, but anyway, it’s not that important to us anymore.”

Saunders said there was photographic evidence the balloon touched down at one point in Northern Ireland.

“There are groove marks in a field and at that stage, Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson were on board. On that basis . . . we are claiming a transatlantic record,” he said.

In Maine, near the Sugarloaf Mountains site where the balloon took off Thursday morning, launch supporters celebrated the crossing with champagne toasts.

Peter Sherry, of New York City and one of the support staff members, said: “A balloon record has been set, the transatlantic hot-air balloon record has been completed. We broke open some champagne here at Sugarloaf.”

Flight project director Chris Moss said earlier in London that Branson and Lindstrand would not claim the record.

Proved It Can be Done

“We did successfully cross from the U.S.A. to Europe, and we have proved that it can be done,” Moss said. “But apparently, from the point of view of the record books, to have crossed the Atlantic, you have to land in fresh water or on land.”

Branson and Lindstrand had already beaten the distance record for hot-air balloons by riding a jet stream across the Atlantic. The previous hot-air balloon distance record was 907 miles and set by American Harold Warner, who flew from Calgary, Canada, to Arnold, Neb., Jan. 26-27, 1985.

Branson and Lindstrand had planned a 65-hour, 3,500-mile flight to Europe. But the unexpectedly brisk West-to-East jet stream reduced that estimate.

They covered the first 3,000 miles in 24 hours at an altitude of 27,000 feet, taking advantage of the jet stream and traveling over 100 m.p.h. while avoiding bad weather at lower altitudes. Solar panels assisted propane tanks in keeping the balloon aloft.

As they approached the Irish coast, Branson and Lindstrand slowed Virgin Atlantic Flyer, but they were warned by ground crews against descending too soon.

Huge Size of Balloon

Virgin Atlantic Flyer was filled with 2.3 million cubic feet of hot air. It is about 30 times bigger than most common hot-air balloons and more than twice the size of the previous largest balloon.