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Balloon Crashes Due to Wind Shear, Pilot lost License

What: Lindstrand LBL 180A
Where: Ljubljana Slovenia
When: August 23, 2012
Who: 30 passengers, 2 crew, 4 fatalities, 28 injured
Why: A hot air balloon with 32 aboard caught fire and crashed into a tree, burning four beyond recognition. At least six children were injured. Then people at the scene were reported resuscitated; eight in the crash were in critical condition. One passenger was quoted as saying “we were landing, but I think the speed was too high for landing so we hit the ground, bounced off once and hit it again. We held on, but five of us fell out“. Twenty-one were admitted in the hospital Ljubljana, and seven to other hospitals. The injured included one brit and three Italians.

When the balloon hit the ground and and bounced back in the air, some passengers jumped or fell out, scattering the injured across four locations and making it more difficult for rescuers. Nine teams with ambulances and twelve emergency medical service teams responded as well as 79 firefighters, 20 fire fighting vehicles and three helicopters.

The balloon takes off and lands in uncontrolled airspace and does not need air traffic control clearance.

Prime Minister Janez Janša, Minister for Health Tomaz Gantar, Minister of Defense Aleš Hojs and Interior Minister Vinko Gorenak expressed condolences.

The cause is being attributed to ground level wind shear. The pilot needed to retake a health exam to renew his license in June.

Five are unidentified.

The on board extinguishers apparently had cracked cylinders.

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    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
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