Blimp Floats Free for 2 Hours After Pilot Plunges to Death

A blimp pilot fell to his death on Sunday as his wife watched, and the 90-foot craft then floated freely at the whim of the winds for more than two hours before being forced down.

The pilot, 37-year-old Keith Hirsch of San Jose, had left the craft and was attempting to hold it down after it lost power and touched down at the Hayward Air Terminal southeast of San Francisco. But the blimp began to rise again, said Fred O’Donnell of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Hirsch held onto a bar attached to the exterior of the cage until the blimp was about 200 feet in the air, then could not hold any longer and fell to his death, O’Donnell said.

The aircraft then floated out of control, reaching about 10,000 feet over nearby Orinda, officials said, until a park service helicopter used wind from its rotors to push the blimp down into a remote ravine around 5:45 p.m.

According to Hayward city spokeswoman Gail Lundholm, Hirsch was giving a member of his ground crew piloting lessons when the blimp lost power. The craft floated down onto a berm on the edge of the airfield and bounced along the grass several times.

Both Hirsch and his ground crew member, Tjader Joseph Aton of San Leandro, jumped out to hold the blimp down, but Aton lost his grip and it began to float again. Hirsch held on and tried to climb back into the cage as the blimp took him into the air with it.

When he could hold on no longer, he fell 200 feet onto the concrete runway. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. Aton, 32, was not hurt.

David Schuck told KCBS radio he saw Hirsch try to climb back into the cage.

“He was holding onto a bar, like a pullup bar. Finally he couldn’t hold on any more after trying to get back in for so long. . . . He just kind of gave way,” he told a reporter at the scene.

Hirsch bought the airship in 1993 for his company, Skyquest, which sold blimp-side advertising and rides, Lundholm said.