Cross your fingers
 

My neighbor is missing.

Damnit.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=11754535

Hope Rich and Carol are found OK.

Fingers crossed. :sunny:

Here's hoping for the best.

Day two, and nothing. Looking pretty grim. Ugh.

My understanding was that the missing baloon was hydrogen filled. You know where that is going.

Yeah, H2.

if it ruptured during the storm at alt... OTOH, the ELT never went off, which is odd. Rich is pretty calm, you'd think if it got really ugly he'd try to put it down (they have survival suits, a raft, etc). This makes me sick. Saw his truck in the driveway earlier, made me sad. (he likes doing this stuff, but I feel sad for his wife and 2 kids (one goes to school with my daughter in 1st grade)).

Sad news sory to hear this I hope they are found.

You will never get me up in a flying thing that you cant steer.

I've been up, myself, but only over albuquerque (which is dangerous enough). I don't know how actually dangerous gas ballooning is in terms of deaths per seat mile, etc. It might well be safer than driving, but the lack of control is pretty scary.

I don't place putting down outside the relm of possibility. I don't know how these challenges are conducted, but were there other balloons in the area? I can't see other balloons getting too far ahead or behind the missing craft. If they go solo, what did the gondola look like? If he put down in a controlled manor the ELT wouldn't engage, and he may not have had time to manually engage the ELT. Any electrical charge could have set off a conflagration, and sink the gondola before any reaction.

Crikey!!....that's so sickening :nope:

Hope there may yet be a positive outcome.

Garth Sonnenberg of Albuquerque, a friend of Abruzzo's, said Wednesday that he had heard that the balloonists had problems with their radio throughout the flight. "We're hoping that it's a good possibility that it's just a radio problem," he said.

No other balloons nearby, they diverge rather remarkably (winds aloft at different speeds).

2 people aboard, and the gondola is pretty light. Rich's helium gondola is tiny, made of tubular Al and nylon. This one might have been more like a hot air balloon one (wicker).

Might be, hence my fingers crossed. That said, being totally incommunicado for so long when they have sat and cell phones... he'd have to know after the storm etc that everyone would worry.

Mind showing me anywhere in article where Hydrogen is mentioned.

It is indeed an H2 race.

http://www.gordonbennett2010.com/sys...Approved_0.pdf