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CNN Live At Daybreak

Steve Fossett Discusses Aborted Balloon Trip Around the World

Aired August 24, 2001 - 07:58   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, a real treat for us at this hour, we promised you Steve Fossett. He is between planes on his way back here to the U.S. from overseas.

And from Brazil, Steve, I hope we've got you hooked up out there, have we? Steve, are you there?

STEVE FOSSETT, BALLOONIST: Oh, I'm here. Good morning.

FLOCK: Hey, good morning, good to talk to you. Last we talked to you last week. In fact, I guess it was just a week ago on the phone there from your mission control in St. Louis. You're now back on terra firma. It was too early to ask then about whether you're going to do it again. I've got to ask you right now, have you even begun to think about that again?

FOSSETT: It's becoming increasingly tempting. So I've been landed for a week now and the wheels are in motion and we're making a full consideration about the possibility of flying next summer.

FLOCK: You know we were talking to your friends and your mission control folks, Joe Ritchie and Bob Rice and Tim Cole, they are just amazed by your spirit and what keeps you going. You're now, is it 57, Steve?

FOSSETT: Well, you know this is fascinating. I mean it interests me, and I'm glad other people are interested in it and that's what really what keeps me going. I mean it's just a personal interest and the idea of trying to make a personal achievement.

FLOCK: Yes, do you feel at all like you're banging your head against the wall here? I mean is it just physically impossible for one guy to be in a balloon and do this himself?

FOSSETT: Well, we're impressed how difficult it turned out to be. I never would have imagined that I could make six attempts and not succeed, so it's obviously much more difficult than we originally presumed.

FLOCK: You know I love storms, but I don't know that I would have wanted to be with you in the gondola of that balloon with what you went through I guess just about almost 24 hours ago. What was that like and the prospect of that I mean how bad were those storms? FOSSETT: They were bad thunderstorms. And I pulled up next to a thunderstorm at 27,000 feet and I couldn't get away from it. So I was just one mile to the side of it with the lightning flashing and quite worried that I might be sucked in to the thunderstorm and then pulled down.

FLOCK: The last thing I got to ask, and I know you went -- you went down in the water in the Coral Sea and that was not a pleasant experience. Obviously a big story this summer is the shark attacks. I know you dealt with that in the Coral Sea. Was that on your mind at all if you got past South America and kept on going you may not have come back?

FOSSETT: There was a lot of water. The forecast was that I'd spend another 10 days from South America, if I made it, and it's possible if the routing would have gone bad and I would have never made it back to land and be in for another sea landing.

FLOCK: You wouldn't have wanted that.

Steve Fossett, boy, I appreciate the time this morning. You know we're going to keep an eye on it. Obviously Steve Fossett, a good Chicago boy, made a lot of money in the -- in the options trade in Chicago and now putting it to some good use.

COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Now he's living his dream.

Wasn't it about a week ago you were in his headquarters watching him...

FLOCK: It was exactly a week ago, exactly.

MCEDWARDS: Yes, watching him come down.

FLOCK: Yes.

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