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A victim of a hot air balloon crash in Arizona left a last, heartbreaking message to his girlfriend just moments before the craft went down, killing at least four people.
Chayton Wiescholek, 28, was one of 13 people, including eight skydivers and four passengers, aboard the balloon flying over Eloy when it crashed at around 7.50am local time in a rural desert area.
Chayton Wiescholek was among the four killed in a hot air balloon crash in Arizona
(Chayton Wiescholek)
His long-time girlfriend, Kinsey Taylor, was among the skydivers who jumped safely before the balloon showed signs of malfunction on Sunday. Ms Taylor read her boyfriend’s last message saying “goodbye” upon landing and began to panic, according to the victim’s mother Rhonda Wiescholek.
“She looked at her phone and had a message from my son. It said ‘I love you.’ He knew he was going to die,” Ms Wiescholek told Fox17.
Gary Wiescholek, the victim’s father, said his son’s last thoughts were with his girlfriend, whom he texted “on the way down”.
“This ain’t gonna be good, I love you, goodbye,” he wrote.
Ms Taylor immediately tried to call her boyfriend but “someone else answered the phone and said: This is not good, you need to be here now”.
A view of a hot air balloon crash site near Eloy, Arizona, that killed four people and seriously injured a fifth
(screengrab/ KNXV)
“She shedded her parachute harness and she ran two miles to get to him and officials wouldn’t let her near him,” the victim’s father added.
The couple lived with their cats in Union City, Michigan, and were on a vacation in Arizona at the time of the crash.
The victim’s mother caught the first flight from Michigan to Arizona after learning about her son’s fate, she told Arizona’s. “I’m staying here until I can take my son home. I am not leaving without him.”
“There’s not a whole bunch more you can say. You’re just broken,” the mother said.
“He was just up in the balloon to be with her and all the skydivers had jumped out of the balloon and then something went wrong and we still don’t know what.”
While the cause of the crash was still under investigation, preliminary reports suggest an “unspecified problem” with the “envelope” of the balloon could have been the reason behind the craft’s crash. The “envelope” is the bag that fills with hot air to make the balloon rise.
The investigators have not found any mechanical anomalies, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The other passengers killed in the crash were Kaitlynn Bartom, 28, of Indiana; and Atahan Kiliccote, 24, of California, police said. Cornelius Van Der Walt, 37, who piloted the balloon, was also killed in the crash.
The youngest indiual left onboard, Valerie Sutterheim, 23, of Arizona, survived the crash but was in critical condition.
