Hot air balloon unexpectedly lands in Newark, Del. neighborhood

The incident happened in the Gray Acres community of Newark on Tuesday.
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
NEWARK, Delaware (WPVI) -- It was a beautiful, majestic scene, but certainly not one you see every day: a hot air balloon making an unscheduled landing in your neighborhood.

That's exactly what happened in the Gray Acres community of Newark around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday. One neighbor filmed the whole event.
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"When I looked over the top of the house, I saw a balloon landing," said Kelly Williams Maresca. "The kids wanted to go chase it and find out what was going on, so that's what we did."

Apparently, the balloon lost a sandbag, so the pilot landed it in the street.

"There were four people on the balloon, a recreational kind of flight," said Maresca. "The pilot obviously knew what he was doing. It was hovering for a while and then they made a safe landing."

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The event caused a lot of excitement there on Ivory Lane, with kids running to get a peek and residents taking lots of pictures.
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Maresca documented the whole event with a play-by-play, from the landing to the packing up of the balloon with the crew.



"They asked the neighborhood to help and the kids obviously loved it. They've never seen something like this before," she said.

The Christiana Fire Company responded when they got the call for this aircraft emergency.

Luckily, no one was hurt.

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