Proposal on illegal hot air balloon ride ends in tragedy after crash left one dead and multiple injured
A proposal aboard an illegal hot air balloon in Brazil turned deadly after strong winds caused it to crash — killing a recently married passenger.Gabrielle Nascimento, 27, and her fiancé, Tiago Kempinas, 37, drove seven hours from Rio de Janeiro home to the city of Boituva in São Paulo on Sunday shortly before 5 a.m.before heading to a “clandestine” operation to board the hot air balloon, the Brazilian news outlet G1 reported.“As it was very windy in Boituva, I asked a woman, who I believe was the company’s receptionist, if we would fly.
She said ‘yes,'” Nascimento recalled.“We boarded the plane to a location that we later discovered was clandestine, where two balloons were being inflated.”Nascimento, a college student, had no idea she was being proposed to onboard and was more worried about her fear of heights before takeoff.“I asked about the wind, and the pilot said he was monitoring the situation using an aeronautical device and that it was possible to fly safely until 9 a.m.,” she said.The couple, along with 31 other passengers, got in the basket and took off.As the balloon glided about 328 to 492 feet in the air, Kempinas pulled out a ring and popped the question to Nascimento, who said yes, she told the outlet.However, soon after their joyful moment in the sky, flight conditions took a turn for the worse, and the pilot began to lose control of the hot air balloon.“It was beautiful, until it turned into a nightmare.It was horrible,” Nascimento recalled.
“I will never get in a balloon again, let alone a plane.”The college student and other passengers watched as the second balloon that took off alongside theirs quickly landed due to the strong winds.She said the pilot, Fabio Pereira, was talking on a two-way radio about continuing just as all hell broke loose.“At that moment, the balloon started going too fast,” she said.“He then tried to make the first landing in an orange grove.”Nascimento recalled watching four f...