Video: One killed, five hurt in hot air balloon crash landing in Friesland village
One person died and five people were injured when a hot air balloon crashed in the Friesland village of De Hoeve on Wednesday evening. The hot air balloon, carrying 34 people, was caught off guard by a strong gust of wind while landing, the Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Association (KNVvL) told Omrop Fryslân.
The accident happened in a meadow near De Hoeve at around 9:00 p.m. According to the KNVvL, the balloon was descending slowly for landing when the gust of wind caught it. The balloon landed hard, causing the basket to bounce. Five people fell out.
The emergency services responded en masse, deploying 14 ambulances, a mobile medical team, two medical officers on duty, a Red Cross emergency response team, two air ambulances, and a medical van to the scene. They declared a Grip 1 emergency, which means that all responding services report to one commanding officer, making it easier to coordinate the response.
“You can imagine, 34 people in a basket like that immediately creates a huge panic situation,” Jan Willem Zwart, a spokesperson for Veiligheidsregio Friesland, the office for the local emergency services, told Omrop Fryslân. “A hot air balloon bouncing down has a huge impact. That impact can also be internal.”
One person died at the scene, and five were taken to the hospital for treatment. According to Zwart, the emergency services resuscitated someone before moving them to the hospital. He could not comment on the injured’s current condition.
A man from Heerenveen witnessed the accident while he was driving home. “It happened very quickly and very abruptly,” he told RTL Nieuws. “Initially, I wanted to wait a bit before driving on to see how the balloon would start its descent. But before I even stopped, I saw the balloon make a rather hard landing. It seemed as if its speed was increasing instead of decreasing. It bounced on the ground, but also went back up quite high. And it repeated itself several times.”
The aviation police are investigating the accident. According to Omrop Fryslân, the balloon took off in Joure and is one of the largest still operating in the Netherlands.
