Hot-air balloon carrying 13 people lands in California back yard: ‘out of a fairytale’

The enormous hot-air balloon, with a pilot and passengers in the basket, descended perfectly on Saturday on a small plot of grass at a home in Temecula. Hunter Perrin said he had no idea that he had visitors until a neighbor alerted him.

“I was watching TV and my wife was doing yoga,” Perrin told the Associated Press. “There was a man standing in front of my door saying: ‘They just landed.’ What? I was very confused.”

But there they were, a group of anxious people suddenly relieved to be on solid ground. Perrin’s grassy back yard patch is only about 10ft (3 meters) wide.

“It was unbelievable, like something out of a Disney fairytale,” Jenna Perrin said. “The balloon didn’t hit our house or our trees. It was kissing the fence.”

Brianna Avalos and her husband were riding in the balloon to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. She said the pilot informed passengers that he needed to make an emergency landing because of low fuel and a shift in winds.

“At first I was like: ‘Oh my God! We’re in a backyard! This is crazy!’” Avalos told KABC-TV.

The blue balloon with gold stars and a crescent moon image was a spectacle as it came to rest in the back yard, towering over Perrin’s home. The pilot disembarked the passengers, returned aloft and then landed the balloon nearby in the street, where it was dismantled.

“He was an amazing pilot,” Avalos said.

Denni Barrett, the owner of Magical Adventure, which provides the balloon rides, declined to identify the pilot but said he had “exercised great judgment” and “done the right thing”.

“Most of our landings are in wine country,” Barrett said, referring to vineyards in California’s Riverside county. “Usually they’re bigger backyards.”