This woman, Marci Cook, was injured in a hot air balloon accident. She therefore made it her life’s work to speak out against the evils of ballooning. hotairballoonaccidents.com is a site she set up which is entirely devoted to exposing the “hot air balloon propaganda” which she apparently believes is brainwashing so many people.
Furthermore she also shills a book on how to “succeed” in Multi-Level Marketing. The book is called High Voltage Success (she was zapped by a powerline - talk about a dignified title) and promises “shockingly simple secrets to building your MLM business.” Somehow her hatred of hot air balloons is tied in with her “secrets,” I take it.
The rest of the site is devoted to bashing the FAA and talking about how evil hot air balloons are. “HOT AIR BALLON KILLS WOMAN IN ALBUQUREQUE,” screams one of the headlines. (Reminds me of “man killed by gun” articles which I, unfortunately, see everywhere.)
An a different note… can I ask how you found this site, Argent Towers? You don’t have to answer, but I’m imagining you googled “hot air balloon accidents” and I’m wondering why anybody would do that.
Interesting, I came to the realization earlier this morning that every single accident, misfortune, and tragedy in my life so far has been non-balloon related, as good a reason as any to call for mandatory balloon-only travel for all.
I was just wondering what could possibly go wrong on a hot air balloon, which is why I started this thread some time ago. It seems like running into power lines is the greatest risk.
She may be a bit of a whack job, but in the middle of her OMG HOT AIR BALLOONS ARE THE SPAWN OF SATAN stuff she does actually have a valid point.
There are on average about 20 hot air balloon accidents per year, and there are also about 1900 general aviation accidents per year (note - an accident doesn’t necessarily mean a fatality - fatality statistics are much lower), which initially might make you think that balloons are much safer. However, there are a lot less balloons than fixed wing aircraft being used. If you average up the statistics per hour of flight, hot air balloons are actually much more dangerous than fixed wing aircraft. Ms. Whack Job says 4 times more dangerous, but the statistics I’ve seen put it closer to 5. She may be a whacko, but she does at least appear to be using accurate statistics. She even quotes the 20/1900 statistics on her web site.
This site presents the same statistics without the OMG HOT AIR BALLOONS ARE TEH EVIL rhetoric. This site shows that if you lose the crazy lady attitude there is actually a reasonable point to be made. http://www.facworld.com/FACWORLD.nsf/Doc/Hotairballoon
Also, while you are comparing statistics, it is interesting to note that about 1 out of every 3 general aviation accidents results in fatality, where the ratio for balloons is closer to 1 in 10. This means that while hot air balloons may have a higher accident rate, the fatality rate isn’t that much different than general aviation.
Wow, because of her efforts, I hope someday no one is ever forced to ride in a hot air balloon ever again!
She’s got a point. If my kids are going to be taken to school in hot air balloons, then they need to be safe or banned! Also, when I am heading to and from work every day, do I really need to be dodging hot air balloons at every turn? I’ve had enough. My police department and fire company are routinely late, and now I realize through her website expose that it’s because they insist on using hot air balloons that are slow and (apparently) dangerous!
This thread brings to mind the BeBop Deluxe song “Life in the Air Age”:
Life in the Air Age
isn’t all the brochures say
Life in the Air Age
it’s too dangerous to stay
Life in the Air Age
airships crashing every day into the bay
