ORDEAL BY BALLOON

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1929, Page 3

ORDEAL BY BALLOON

GERMANS BLOWN TO BRITAIN. What was intended to he a short demonstration trip in a balloon—begun at 9 a.m. one Sunday last month, near Leipzig, ended at 4 o’clock, two days later, on a Scottish mountainside.

The deflating mechanism failed, and the three men in the balloon were carried by a 50-mi le-an-hour gale across the North Sea, unable to control their craft. _ A. tree in Aberdeenshire ended their adventures.

Herr Rohr, one of the balloonists, told a graphic story of their journey.

“The weather was extremely cold when we set out,” he said,;“there being, about 10 degrees of frost, “Suddenly a great wind sprang up, and we were driven in,, a northerly direction over the Hartz Mountains.

“We tried to land by pulling the deflators’s rings, but the mechanism jammed and we found our attempt fruitless.

“We were swept out to sea by the gale', and when near the coast of Bngland wo were again blown out to sea.

“We. kept north until wo saw the lights of a fairly large town, which we later learned was Aberdeen. We were then.swept inland, the wind getting very intense. “Through the darkness ahead we could see snow-covered bills, and the peril of crashing came forcibly to our minds.

“We threw out all our ballast; still we did not rise. We threw over our cameras, our instruments, everythin" we could cut loose; still we could not rise, above the hills. We bumped. “The wind was too stormy for a grapnel to be. used and for a distance of several miles oiir progress was marked by a series of bumps against hillsides and trees until about 4 o’clock, when the basket caught :n a tree.

“The basket toppled over, practically uprooting the tree, and we fell out.”

In the forced landing Herr Plieilecke hurt his ankle. It was still dark; all w'ere numb with cold and shaken by the fall. Nevertheless they set out to seek shelter, ploughing across fields, and scaling walls, the two friends assisting the injured man. They finally reached a farmhouse and were taken to Torphins.