Survivor remembers Smokey Bear balloon crash 20 years later

ALBUQUERQUE, NM – There have been at least three rough balloon landings this week alone, with one becoming trapped in trees and two others colliding with some power lines.

But none of this compares to that shattering disaster in 2004. New Mexicans will surely remember how the Smokey Bear balloon crashed into a radio tower, endangering the lives of the pilot and two young boys.

Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of the infamous crash. For the first time since that fateful day, KOB 4 spoke to one of the boys in that basket and the man who helped get them all back to the ground.

“This was my first balloon fiesta,” Troy Wells said. “It was my first chance to go up in a balloon. I didn’t quite land it the way I should have.”

Troy Wells was just a middle school student in Rio Rancho when he volunteered with the Smokey Bear balloon crew in 2004.

“They would sort of pick people from the crew at the last minute to fly up. And on the last day of the Balloon Fiesta I got my chance,” Wells said.

14-year-old and 10-year-old Aaron Whitacre accompanied longtime balloon pilot Bill Chapel on a typical flight over Albuquerque.

“People say it’s like the earth is sinking under you, and that was definitely mine, my experience,” Wells said. “I remember we were sort of driving along the river. And when we came back up, I could see the tower there.”

A 650 foot tall radio tower.

“We were getting closer, but we were kind of on our way to sorting it out. But then the wind picked up and we hit him,” Wells said. “I'm pretty sure Bill said some obscenity or something right before we got down to business, like, oh, something like that, you know? And when he said that, I thought, 'Oh, if the pilot says that, that's not good.'”

It wasn't good.

“I mean, it’s like being in a car accident, right? Like being thrown around,” Wells said. “You think this is what it feels like to fall into a balloon. I just thought, OK, I'm going to die, you know, we're going to drop out of, you know, 70 stories or whatever.”

Wells says the pilot grabbed the tower to stabilize the basket and then it was time to get out.

“Tower kind of runs like that, and you can hear it. You can hear the bending of the metal or the cables,” Wells said. “Sounds like you shouldn’t hear about radio towers, right?”

Wells says Whitacre began climbing down the ladder first, then he, and then the pilot after turning off the balloon's propane tanks.

“I looked down. Luckily, I'm not someone who's particularly afraid of heights. But you know, I was afraid of those heights because you should be afraid,” Wells said.

The man who helped rescue the trio would agree.

“The furthest I’ve traveled before was probably about 100 feet,” said Christopher Perez, a retired PNM lineman.

Perez was a PNM lineman at the time and assumed he was brought in to provide advice.

“I looked at one of the lieutenants or the chief at the time and said, 'Well, someone has to go up there,'” Perez said. “When I heard there were children, I hoped there would be someone who would have the courage and faith to do something like this for my children. That was my driving force, thinking about my girls.”

Perez says he climbed several hundred feet to help Whitacre descend, then went back up to get Wells. He then backs down a third time to take Chapel down.

“The fact that they have come down to the heights that they have already achieved is a huge credit to them. But when I got to them, no one wanted to move,” Perez said.

Everyone made it safely back to the ground.

“It was all over the news at the time, and then I realized it. Like, whoa. That was me, I shouldn't have survived that. You know, that's when I really felt a sense of appreciation for what had happened,” Wells said.

Even after all of this.

“They were able to raise funds and get the new Smokey the Bear balloon. Bill, the pilot, wanted to fly it and asked me if I wanted to fly it for the first time at the Balloon Fiesta. And I said, yes. So I was in the balloon on the first day of the Balloon Fiesta the next year,” Wells said.

Now living on the East Coast, Wells still watches the Balloon Fiesta with his family every year, but the harrowing memories live on.

“Every time I drive down Second north or south I see the towers. I don’t talk to them all the time, but I definitely think about them every time I drive by, especially now with the Balloon Fiesta,” Perez said.

Still a popular sight at Balloon Fiesta every year, the Smokey Bear balloon has just received an upgrade.

The replacement balloon has had its day and a brand new Smokey Bear balloon is taking to the skies at this year's Balloon Fiesta.