The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday said that it would launch an investigation today into a hot air balloon flight that was forced to land in a mountainous area of Taitung County.
The hot air balloon, in the shape of a pumpkin, was tested by three pilots in the Taiwan International Balloon Fiesta in Taitung on Thursday. Because of a sudden change in wind direction, the balloon was blown to an uncharted mountainous area in Taitung. It was later seen by residents of Hongyeh Village (紅葉), who said they found it strange that the balloon was flying after dark.
The residents helped the balloon to land safely at the main gate of Hong Yeh Elementary School by guiding it with lights. The process took about two hours.
Local media reported that the balloon took off at 5:25pm. Prior to takeoff, balloonists found the wind was blowing from the south after doing tests in three different locations. However, soon after the balloon took off, the wind shifted and blew from a northwesterly direction.
Lin Chun-liang (林俊良), deputy director of the administration’s flight standards division, said his agency is heading to Taitung today to review the documents related to the test flights on Thursday, as well as the balloon’s aviation-worthiness records.
The administration said in a statement yesterday that its preliminary understanding was that the balloon was blown to the mountainous area due to the sudden change in wind direction.
It said the team on the ground that was supposed to keep track of the balloon was unable to offer immediate assistance because the balloon was heading to the mountains.
The pilots’ fear of landing on high-voltage electricity wires in the mountains led to their failure to perform a proper landing, the statement said
“We want to know the locations where they measured the wind direction,” Lin said. “Because it is summer, there could have been heat convection. We also want to examine the pilots’ records of handling the balloon’s flights in the past.”
Lin said free-flow hot air balloon flights can in other areas be held in the early morning or at about sunset because flights are launched from plains. However, the hot air balloon festival in Taitung is held in the rift valley between Hualien and Taitung, and the flight in this case was launched in the late afternoon. Pilots must be able to meet the challenges brought by the geographic conditions.
The administration’s records show that the Taitung County Government has already recorded three incidents during the event.
Two of them occurred because of changing weather, as well as the pilots’ failure to control the timing of the landing, whereas another one involved a lack of coordination between the pilot and ground crew.
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