Unrepentant lawn-chair balloonist says he intends to try more stunts
CALGARY Comparing himself to historical pioneers, a somewhat unrepentant Daniel Boria on Friday vowed to continue publicity stunts in the future like his “balloonatic” flight over Calgary.
“(They) didn’t charge the Wright brothers,” Boria said, referring to the aviation pioneers who first took mankind to the air.
“Why climb the highest mountain, why 85 years ago fly the Atlantic?” he asked.
“I chose to fly a chair not because it is easy, but because it is hard,” Boria said, borrowing freely from John F. Kennedy’s speech about the space race.
In court Boria offered an apology to Judge Bruce Fraser for his conduct, which endangered flights into and out of Calgary International Airport on July 5, 2015.
“I really do apologize for it,” he told the provincial court judge. “I understand the danger.” But once media cameras started rolling, Boria was less contrite.
“I have remorse, I understand what we did caused a little bit of danger, but at the same time when you text and drive they don’t charge you as if you’ve hit a whole bus of kids,” he said.
When asked about endangering hundreds of lives by flying over airport flight paths, twice having planes fly under his homemade contraption, Boria claimed there was little danger to his stunt.
“We planned the whole thing out really well ... we knew what we were doing,” he said.
Boria said he is now pursuing a hot-air balloon pilot’s licence “so we can do our next stunt legally.”
As for his courtroom contrition, Boria conceded some remorse for his stunt.
“I said I apologized and understand some of the danger that I may have caused and I really do apologize for wasting everybody’s time.”
Fraser, in accepting a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Matt Dalidowicz and defence lawyer Alain Hepner for a $5,000 fine and $1,500 victim fine surcharge, characterized Boria’s conduct as a little more serious.
“He had no radio, or transponder,” the judge said, of the inability of air traffic control to communicate with Boria as he soared over the city in a lawn chair hooked to more than 100 helium balloons.
Fraser noted controllers were able to monitor Boria’s flight for a time, “until he was lost in the clouds at 7,000 feet (2,133 metres).
“It is unknown what height he achieved, but it has been estimated at 14,000 feet (more than four kilometres),” Fraser said.
Boria’s plan was to parachute into the Stampede infield during the chuckwagon races, but he missed his mark and landed in an industrial area southeast of the park.
“This stunt was extremely dangerous for a number of obvious reasons,” Fraser said, noting Boria had two passenger jets fly underneath him.
“The offender had no control over this contraption,” he said.
The judge said had Boria collided with a plane it could have been catastrophic to both passengers and people on the ground.
“The stunt was unconscionably stupid,” Fraser said.
A condition of Dalidowicz agreeing to the maximum fine for a summary conviction of dangerous operation of an aircraft was Boria making a $20,000 donation to the Veterans Food Bank.
Boria’s sentencing was delayed last month when only half that amount was paid, but Hepner said his client has now made the complete donation.