Two Eagles lands
Landing ends record-setting trans-Pacific flight for 2 pilots
Record-setting balloonists splash down off the west coast of Baja California
The Two Eagles has landed. Balloonists Troy Bradley of Albuquerque and Leonid Tiukhtyaev of Moscow made a controlled water landing about four miles off the west coast of Baja California, Mexico, just after 7 a.m. Saturday.
The landing ended a gutsy, physically demanding, record-setting trans-Pacific flight that began nearly a week ago from Japan.
The 139,000-cubic-foot helium balloon splashed down just off La Poza Grande, south of San Isidro, the landing spot predicted by earlier trajectories.
The balloonists set a tentative distance record of 6,646 statute miles flown, and a duration record of 6 days, 16 hours, 38 minutes — or 160 hours, 38 minutes. The new gas balloon distance and duration records shatter the old ones that have been in place for 34 and 37 years, respectively.
The previous distance record of 5,208 miles was set in 1981 by the Double Eagle V balloon team; the previous duration record of 137 hours 6 minutes was set in 1978 by the Double Eagle II. Both of those record-setting flights also involved pilots from Albuquerque.
The distance and duration numbers still have to be verified by ballooning authorities in the United States and Europe before they are entered into the official record books.
Water landings are acceptable under the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale rules governing the establishment of world records, said mission director Steven Shope, speaking from mission control in the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum.
The capsule was “designed from day one to be able to survive a water landing,” he said. Flooding keels give it stability in the water and the still intact envelope “provides vertical stability to the capsule in the water.”
An Albuquerque company, Composite Tooling, designed and built the capsule from Kevlar and carbon fiber. Unequipped and unmanned, the capsule, measuring 7 feet long, 5 feet wide and 5 feet high, weighs a mere 223 pounds but is capable of supporting up to 10,000 pounds.
The balloon remained stable and the pilots stayed in the capsule for about an hour until a Mexican fishing trawler, working in conjunction with the Mexican Navy, pulled the pilots onto the vessel and then retrieved the balloon and capsule.
Bradley and Tiukhtyaev were then transferred to a Mexican naval vessel, where they were examined by medical personnel and then taken to Puerto San Carlos. From there, they were expected to drive south to Cabo San Lucas and catch an airline flight to Albuquerque, arriving this afternoon, Shope said.
Meanwhile, the fishing trawler transferred the envelope and capsule to shore, where the chase crew, led by the balloon’s builder, Bert Padelt, was examining it and preparing it for overland transport to the
United States.
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez contacted Mexican authorities to facilitate the recovery, and Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry was on the balloon chase crew and was working with officials on the ground in Mexico. Shope said that Berry was the first person to spot the balloon in the water and relate that information in a tweet.
Celebration
At mission control, spontaneous cheering and clapping broke out and a few bottles of sparkling wine were uncorked upon receiving news that Bradley, 50, and Tiukhtyaev, 58, had been plucked from the ocean and were safe.
“I am totally amazed at how well they’ve done under such grueling conditions — lack of sleep, living at high altitude, a physiologically taxing environment where they were on oxygen a lot — also a lot of tense decision making, especially in the last 24 hours,” Shope said.
The mission control support staff worked all through the night to help bring the balloon down safely, he added.
Tami Bradley, wife of Troy Bradley, didn’t get much sleep either.
After setting down in the ocean, “Troy called me and the first thing he told me was he hates sailing,” she said. “Of course we are incredibly pleased that he had a successful journey and are very excited to see him — and relieved. It’s been a long night.”
Tiukhtyaev’s wife, Irina, and their daughter, Margarita Shmidt, were also on hand Saturday at mission control.
“We are very excited because what just happened is very important and meaningful to our family,” said Irina Tiukhtyaev through an interpreter. “We are very glad for the success of this mission and very grateful to all those working on this mission. This is our common victory and we congratulate everybody.”
Bradley and Tiukhtyaev launched from Saga, Japan, at 6:23 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 25 — which because of the time difference was 2:23 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24, in Albuquerque. The launch had been scrubbed twice because of unsuitable weather in the weeks leading