1 hour ago
3
Wild video captured a hot air balloon packed with passengers making an emergency landing in a leafy California backyard — leaving the homeowner completely gobsmacked.
The footage posted online by homeowner Hunter Perrin showed the massive hot air balloon carrying 13 people lowering into his Temecula backyard on Saturday.
Perrin was completely oblivious to the his flown-in visitors until a neighbor knocked on his door.
He said he was watching TV around 8:30 a.m. when the neighbor told him about the freak landing, KABC reported.
“I go and answer the door. This guy’s like, ‘They just landed in your backyard!!!'” Perrin told the outlet. “And I’m like, ‘What!?'”
The startled homeowner and his wife, Jenna, then ran outside to check what had happened.
The bizarre footage captured a basket full of abnormally calm passengers smiling and waving at Perrin and his neighbors, and a giant, towering balloon cascading into the trees above the yard.
“Hi everybody, look at that. Ha ha!” someone could be heard yelling at the smiling passengers.
The “masterful” pilot of the hot air balloon told Perrin that the wind had died down, forcing them to make an emergency landing.
“I open the sliding glass door, and there’s a basket full of thirteen people in my backyard!” Perrin recalled.
“The pilot, he was masterful. He got it right down inside, like directly into the backyard, where there was nothing. The balloon didn’t catch on anything. No one was injured.”
Stunned passenger Brianna Avalos added that she had been taking the balloon ride to celebrate her 10th anniversary with her husband when the pilot suddenly announced they had to land.
“At first I was like, ‘Oh my God! We’re in a backyard! This is crazy!’ Avalos told the outlet.
“He said there’s not enough wind, because the wind kind of like, stopped a little bit. And he was like, ‘We’re going to land.’ And we only had a little bit of fuel left,” she said.
The passengers eventually walked out of the basket, and the balloon was attached to a strap and airlifted out of the backyard and onto the street, footage showed.
Nobody was injured, and no property was damaged during the landing.
English (US)