Hot air balloon crashes after man proposes to girlfriend
The crash landing was caught on video.
— -- What began as a picturesque proposal during a hot air balloon ride in Canada ended with a crash landing caught on video.
About 10 people were on board the balloon over Edmonton when it hit a tree about 25 feet off the ground, passengers told ABC News. The balloon then got caught in another tree, settled on the ground, floated back up, went over another row of trees before finally landing in a field where it slowly tipped over.
“It happened so quick that I don’t think anyone was really terrified or scared,” Jeffrey Scott, an industrial programmer from Edmonton, told ABC News.
Stephen Martin said he had just proposed to his girlfriend, Christine Peters, when the balloon crashed.
Martin told ABC News that the couple had been trying to go on a balloon ride for months because it was Peters' childhood dream.
When they finally got up in the air, Martin got down on one knee. Peters said yes, but when they were trying to land, Martin said the pilot told them that the balloon was moving too fast.
“All of a sudden, we're still 30 or 40 feet up in the air and just the whole thing shakes and you hear like cracking of branches, and we're in a tree,” Peters told CTV.
No one was significantly injured, according to Martin and Scott.
Martin told ABC News that they were a little sore after the crash, but the biggest injury onboard the balloon was a broken fingernail.
Despite Martin's fear of heights and the hard landing, he told ABC News he would take a hot air balloon ride again.
“Looking at it now, I’m actually glad we went out because it was kind of like a crazy adventure ... plus, seeing how I proposed to her too, it makes for an awesome story,” Martin told CTV.