site.btaUPDATED One Dies, Another Injured after Jump from Hot Air Balloon near Botevgrad, Balloon Owner Is Arrested

One died and another one was injured after jumping from a hot air balloon near Botevgrad, Western Bulgaria, the head of the Interior Ministry press service, Mitko Dimitrov, said on Wednesday. One of the men died on impact and the other is currently hospitalized.

The owner of the hot air balloon was arrested.

The initial information from the Ministry of Interior was for three skydivers involved in an accident between the villages of Litakovo and Novachene, near Botevgrad.

The incident was reported at approximately 9:12 a.m. Emergency services, including teams from the Ministry of Interior, ambulance services, and the fire brigade, were dispatched immediately.

Dimitrov said the skydivers were civilians who jumped from a hot air balloon carrying a total of four people, including the owner and a hang glider. He also noted that poor weather conditions, including heavy fog, were present at the time of the incident.

Sofia District Prosecutor's Office has opened pre-trial proceedings in connection with the incident, Sofia District Prosecutor Natalia Nikolova told BTA. She specified that the pre-trial proceedings were initiated for causing death due to ignorance or careless performance of an occupation or other legally regulated activity.

A team of investigators from the Investigation Department of the District Prosecutor's Office, together with an expert in the field, was sent to the scene. An inspection of the scene of the accident has begun.

At a news briefing in Ruse, on the Danube, the head of the Civil Aviation Administration, Anelia Marinova, said that the hot air balloon had no papers and registration, no flight worthiness certificate and the pilot was not lincesed. 

She said that the authorities know who the owner is but refused to name him. It transpired that there have been several tip-offs to the authorities and they did inspections, the most recent of them on October 13, when a statement of an administrative violation was drawn up. "Unfortunately that could not prevent today's tragedy. We know from our inspectors that the authorities have talked to him, including the police, as apparently there were tip-offs about him," she said.

 Marinova said that no permit is required for such flights but the balloon needs to have papers and the pilot must be licensed.

The fine for using a balloon without flight worthiness licence is BGN 3,000 to 10,000, and the same for an unlicensed pilot.

There are only 11 registered hot air balloons in Bulgaria and four of them are flight worthy, said Marinova. She said that the authorities have no way of controlling the purchase of such aircraft. "Anybody who acquires an aircraft, is required to submit papers with the Civil Aviation Administration. We do an inspection and issue the requisite papers, if everything is in order," she said.

Also, there is no ban on jumps from hot air balloons. "Unfortunately, the lovers of extreme sports get increasingly creative in their pursuit for adrenalin rush. We might seek legislative changes, and we will seek support from the Interior Ministry and the tax authorities as we are all involved in a process that needs to be taken to end for all this to stop," said Marinova.