This is what really happened that led to the tragic hot air balloon crash, 8 DEAD 13 injured

“We are in mourning. A tragedy has happened. We will see how it unfolds, what happened, why it happened. But the important thing now is for the state structure to do what it can,” Gov. Jorginho Mello said in a video on X.

Mello said he has asked authorities to head to the municipality “to do as much as possible to rescue, to help, to take to hospital, to comfort the families.”

“According to the pilot, who is one of the survivors, a fire started inside the basket and then he began to lower the balloon. When the balloon was very close to the ground, he ordered people to jump out of the basket,” Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper quoted Praia Grande head police officer Tiago Luiz Lemos as saying.

“Some of them didn’t manage to jump. The fire increased and the balloon ended up falling,” Lemos added.

At least eight people died after a hot air balloon caught fire mid-air, forcing passengers to jump out of the basket to avoid the flames.

The fire occurred in the skies of Praia Grande — a municipality in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, and a popular destination for hot air ballooning — on the morning of Saturday, June 21, according to Jorginho Mello, the state’s governor.

At the time of the incident, there were 21 total people on board the tourist flight, eight of whom have since been confirmed dead, Mello said in an X post, which was originally penned in Portuguese. The 13 other passengers survived, the Santa Catarina governor added. (The Santa Catarina Military Fire Brigade later shared the same fatality count for the incident.)

Mello said officials are currently continuing to monitor the situation.

Onlookers captured the tragedy in videos taken from several angles. In footage posted by Agora Portal, smoke could be seen billowing from the hot air balloon, while flames enveloped the basket.

Two passengers next appeared to jump or fall from the aircraft, one after the other, and the balloon then deflated rapidly, sending the aircraft, still ablaze, hurdling to the ground

The footage also showed that the basket ended up detaching from the balloon shortly before it touched down.

Describing the scene to the local newspaper Jornal Razão, one eyewitness said that after the balloon caught fire, people jumped to escape the blaze. Some jumped per the pilot’s orders, the newspaper said.

After the pilot realized the hot air balloon was on fire, he attempted to descend as quickly as possible and told passengers to jump when the aircraft got close to the ground, Jornal Razão reported.

Some of the passengers managed to jump and survive, while others did not escape the basket fire in time, per the Brazilian newspaper.

According to Jornal Razão, the pilot said the blaze was caused by a backup torch inside the basket, which generated a spontaneous flame.

The pilot told authorities, per the newspaper, that he is not sure if the spare — which is kept aboard the aircraft in case the main burner fails — ignited on its own, but it did start the fire.

Mello shared a statement of support for the victims and their families in a video on X shortly after his initial post.

In his statement, the Santa Catarina governor expressed his condolences to those affected by the fatal incident, which he described as a tragedy, and pledged the state government’s support.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also expressed his support in a statement of his own.

“I would like to express my solidarity with the families of the victims of the balloon accident that occurred this Saturday morning in Santa Catarina,” the president wrote in an X post, originally penned in Portuguese.

He continued. “I would like to place the Federal Government at the disposal of the victims and the state and municipal forces that are working on the rescue and care for the survivors.”