The pilots of a racing balloon are recovering at Parkland Hospital after surviving a fiery crash last night in Kaufman County.
Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race officials confirmed with NBC 5 that Pjotr Halas and Krzystotf Zapart, from Swidnica, Poland, were the crash victims and part of Poland Team 1., saying Zapart, the lead pilot, suffered cuts and burns on his legs and arms. They said Halas had burns and broken bones to his legs and mid-section.
"It was real orange and then the fire kind of went away and then all you could kind of see was the whole balloon turn white," Dixon recalled."White and then all of a sudden it wentand it flashed orange again and then the balloon went down. It was black smoke pretty much... going kind of everywhere." Garrity said the crew had to get to about 12,000 feet high to clear DFW Airport, and the crash site was not out of what would have been a normal path.
"It's very customary for us to see that a balloon has stopped moving, and then we would get a call in the command center from that crew acknowledging that they have landed," Garrity explained."All of a sudden, the tracker stopped at 7:25 Dallas time, and we realized that it had stopped near Crandall.
He said they don't know what happened that led to Poland Team 1's crash. The organizers' statement said there was good weather and good visibility in Crandall at the time of the accident.
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