On July 18, Nicolas offered a hot air balloon flight to his girlfriend for her birthday, near Trois-Ponts. If the flight remains a very good memory for the couple, the landing, on the other hand, did not really go well. Nicolas will keep a bitter memory of it.
At the microphone of RTL, the Belgian explains that when the farmer who owns the field in which the hot air balloon landed, things got worse. “The farmer arrived very quickly and demanded that the pilot give him 50 euros. ‘You’re at my house, you give me 50 euros or you don’t move’”, would have threatened the farmer. “He then went to his tractor and he came to park it on the canvas of the hot air balloon,” adds the 32-year-old Ansois.
The hot air balloon pilot subsequently confirmed the facts to our colleagues. “It’s a kind of racketeering. I put myself between the tractor and the balloon, but I had to move away otherwise it would pass over me, ”says the pilot, who will file a complaint against the farmer.
The pilot ended up having to pay the 50 euros to the farmer. “We called the police who couldn’t come, they were busy with an accident with injured children. We waited for them for two hours and then we had to decide to leave, ”explains the pilot of the hot air balloon.
But the problems did not stop there for the pilot, since the farmer damaged the canvas of his hot air balloon by driving over it with his tractor. The canvas had to be completely revised. “It cost 2,450 euros for the inspection,” laments the pilot.
For hot air balloons, “the law says that you can land anywhere, as long as you don’t cause any damage”, explains the pilot again. He will therefore file a complaint to try to obtain compensation for the costs incurred.