News Digest

Gas-filled balloon completes record-breaking Pacific flight

A gas-filled balloon co-piloted by an American and a Russian touched down safely in the waters off Mexico on Saturday, completing a week-long trans-Pacific flight that unofficially broke two world records, a spokeswoman said. The balloon carrying Troy Bradley of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his Russian co-pilot Leonid Tiukhtyaev, landed near La Poza Grande in the Mexican State of Baja California Sur after a flight that lasted six days, 16 hours and 38 minutes and covered 10,696 km, organizers of the mission said in a statement. Bradley and Tiukhtyaev, known as the Two Eagles, left Saga in southern Japan on Jan. 25 in their attempt to surpass the world distance record for flying a gas-filled balloon, as well as the record for time in flight for that type of aircraft.

The pilots made a controlled descent to a gentle water landing about four miles off the Baja coast.

Kim Vesely, a spokeswoman for the ballooning mission

During the balloon’s descent, winds turned parallel to the coast, making it more prudent for the pilots to execute a landing in the water, Kim Vesely, a spokeswoman for the ballooning mission said. The Albuquerque, New Mexico-based team that oversaw the flight later said in a statement the two pilots were picked up by a fishing boat and taken to shore. The flight surpassed the distance record of nearly 8,383 km for gas balloons set on the only previous manned trans-Pacific flight, in 1981. It also topped the flight duration record of about 137 hours aloft in a gas balloon set in 1978 by a team crossing the Atlantic.