Hot Air Balloon Apparently Snagged Power Lines, Burned

A man and woman from Shreveport died Wednesday when their hot air balloon apparently became ensnared in power lines, then crashed in flames.

The 52-year old owner of the balloon, Bill Harwell, and 54-year old Sandi DeMoss were killed shortly after taking off from Bluebird Hill Airport in Keithville, LA. They had launched along with another balloon at around 1900 local.

“I was holding my little grandbaby. And we were waving to them and talking to them,” witness Sharon Bivins told The Shreveport Times. “They were directly overhead and were just barely over the tops of the trees. They went over and then climbed higher and higher and then dropped. And then we saw the fire and they started going up again.”

“One of my friends said ‘Look out there. That balloon’s afire,’” another witness, Cardis Lambert, told the Times. “I seen one man jump out. Another looked like he was afire when he came down. It startled me. Everyone ran out of the cafe and run out and looked.”

Police said the balloon, "Ol' Blue," apparently touched a 32,000 volt power line, causing circuit breakers to trip and sparking a brief outage in a small residential area.

The second balloon, piloted by Harwell's brother, landed safely.

FAA Preliminary Accident Report

IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: 699WH        Make/Model: S53A      Description: AEROSTAR INTERNATIONAL BALLOON
  Date: 05/18/2005     Time: 0010

  Event Type: Accident   Highest Injury: Fatal     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Destroyed

LOCATION
  City: SHREVEPORT   State: LA   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
  N699WH, AN AEROSTAR INTERNATIONAL S53A BALLOON, HIT POWERLINES ON ATTEMPTED
  LANDING, CAUGHT FIRE AND BURNED, THE TWO PERSONS ON BOARD WERE FATALLY
  INJURED, SHREVEPORT, LA

INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   2
                 # Crew:   1    Fat:   1     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                 # Pass:   1     Fat:   1     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                 # Grnd:          Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   

WEATHER: SHV2336Z 18007KTS 10SM SCT055 BKN280 29/17 A2984

OTHER DATA

  Departed:                             Dep Date:    Dep. Time:     
  Destination:                          Flt Plan:              Wx Briefing: 
  Last Radio Cont: 
  Last Clearance: 

  FAA FSDO: BATON ROUGE, LA  (SW03)               Entry date: 05/19/2005

FMI: www.ntsb.gov