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American Morning

Steve Fossett Aborts Balloon Trip

Aired August 17, 2001 - 09:52   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We are joined now by someone who actually got to watch the whole thing unfold. Christiana Mesquita is a journalist who's traveling behind this balloon, following it in a plane. Christiana, are you there right now?

CHRISTIANA MESQUITA, JOURNALIST: Yes, I am.

HARRIS: Well we sure are glad to be able to talk to you. Can you tell us what you saw and what you went through this morning?

MESQUITA: We were about to take off, in the hopes that we would meet him midair and get some footage of him as he reached the Atlantic, when we were informed that he had decided to abort the mission.

We took off of from Porto Alegre, which is the capitol city of Rio Grande state, and headed towards Bage in the south. When we got here we flew around and we finally spotted the balloon already on the ground on what looks like a very flat farmland.

The way that the balloon landed, it also looks like he hit a line of trees. We saw some people standing around, next to the balloon. Unfortunately, we couldn't go down close enough to actually spot Steve Fossett down there. But we saw the balloon.

We couldn't see the basket, but we saw the balloon was sort of half inflated. But we are trying to get in a car and get to him as soon as we can.

HARRIS: Now, where are you located right now? Are you on the ground right now?

MESQUITA: I am on the ground in the city of Bage. He landed at about 30 kilometers southwest of here.

HARRIS: I understand that the local authorities are the ones who are actually going out there to go pick him up. Correct?

MESQUITA: Yes. We understand that there is an air force helicopter heading there now. We still don't have information of how close they are.

HARRIS: Well, give us a picture or an idea of what it was like up in the air when you were following this balloon. Did you get any -- were the people you were flying with, were they concerned about the storms and about how slow this balloon was moving?

MESQUITA: They were very concerned. I mean that was the first thing I heard from our pilot is that he must have had a very tough night. Because the reports of the storm in this area have been pretty scary.

We understand that he was -- we have been following the path of the balloon for the last 24 hours, and we understand that he was avoiding the storm as much as he could. But he must have had a very hard night indeed.

HARRIS: How about the place where he landed? Was that sort of a lucky find there, being able to find a habited -- an inhabited location at that particular point or what?

MESQUITA: Well, I mean this part of the country is mostly flat and it's mostly farmland. So he was lucky in that sense. You know, had it happened in the Atlantic Ocean it would have been different.

HARRIS: Now were you flying as well through these same storms, or around these storms that the balloon was dealing with?

MESQUITA: No. luckily, when we took off the storm had already subsided and we were flying from a different direction. We were coming from the north.

HARRIS: So when did you find out about this mission being aborted? Did you find out after, well after it had happened or --

MESQUITA: No, no. As it was happening, as we were getting ready to take off I was informed that he had been -- the mission had been aborted and that he was coming down. That was the only information I got until I finally spotted him in this farmland.

HARRIS: Did you actually hear him at all on the radio?

MESQUITA: Not at all. Not at all. We did try to contact him, but did not get any answer back.

HARRIS: OK, because all of us are really curious as to what he sounded like, or if he was trying to fight with mission control to keep this mission going.

MESQUITA: Well, I mean, I don't know. There's been conflicting reports. I tried to --- I contacted the air force here, and the air force here told me that they did not know of this mission at all, which is weird to say the least.

And we don't have anymore information, I am afraid. Until I actually manage to get there and talk to him, we will have to wait.

HARRIS: Christiana, let me ask you something, since you have been flying along behind this balloon for some time now. What are your thoughts about this mission and what you've seen happen here? Did you ever think at any point before this that it was not going to happen, or that you knew for sure it would happen? MESQUITA: I was confident it was going to happen. I mean, the airplane we are using is a Citation Learjet, because we had to be prepared to fly at very high altitudes in order to reach him. So I had no idea this would have happened. It came as a total surprise to us this morning.

HARRIS: Okay. Well, now that it's over do you have a special high point for you, personally, on this mission?

MESQUITA: The high point is going to be when I find Steve and find out from him what happened up there. That's going to be the high point.

HARRIS: All right. Well, listen, Christiana Mesquita, thank you very much for joining us and talking to us about this extraordinary mission, and the unfortunate abortion of it. Thank you very much, and good luck to you. Get home safely.

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