On August 28, 1988, a incident involving the Italian Air Force's Azzuro Aerobatic Team at Ramstein Air Force Base in (West) Germany killed 73 people.
Could that have been the accident you were thinking of?
Posted on 06/09/2003 5:15:07 PM PDT by UnklGene
I saw someone dangling from the balloon. It looked like a doll By Richard Alleyne and Hannah Cleaver at Rheindahlen and Caroline Davies (Filed: 10/06/2003)
The Red Devils parachute team were on first, their perfectly choreographed display officially opening the two-day military show. About 3,000 people had gathered in the early afternoon sunshine at the British Army and Nato base at Rheindahlen, west Germany.
Among them, one British Army father and his German-born wife were enjoying the spectacle with their five-year-old daughter and her older brother. Within minutes their lives would be shattered by one of the cruellest of freak accidents that left their daughter lying dead more than 40 miles away, tangled in the ropes of a helium balloon.
The storm that unleashed this unimaginable series of events began just as the parachutists landed, with absolute precision, in the main arena.
The sky turned black, the wind whipped up and large hailstones battered the panicking crowd fleeing for cover. "It was like a huge, dark hand had swept across the showground knocking everything away," said Lt Col Helen Wildman, a spokesman at the base near Mönchengladbach.
As spectators crowded into tents, a high-speed wind tore at the canvas and overturned tables and chairs, hurling them into the air.
"The main flagpole snapped like a matchstick," said Helga Heine, another military eyewitness. "The metal fencing was all over the place like dominoes. Tents, furniture, people - they were all over the place."
Nearby, the large yellow helium balloon - offering the crowd a bird's-eye view of the military spectacle for 10 euros a ride - ripped away from its moorings, the wind tearing its seven 100ft ropes from the ground.
It appears that seconds before, the five-year-old girl and her parents had been in a tent downwind from the balloon. But when the wind ripped off the canvas roof, they fled outside - straight into the path of the ascending balloon.
Quite how the heavy ropes that tethered it managed to ensnare the five-year-old is a matter for investigation. But as the balloon went soaring into the storm, she was dragged in its wake.
Stunned witnesses could not believe what they were seeing. Frank Niessen, 40, who had crowded into a tent with 15 others, said: "I looked out of the tent and I could see someone dangling from the balloon. It looked like a doll.
"The balloon was already free of its moorings and 10 or 15 metres in the air. It all happened so fast I didn't realise what was happening. But the balloon went up and away."
Mark Ireland, a car salesman from London working on the nearby Peugeot stand, said the balloon had flown as though "rocket propelled".
"The balloon was going so fast the ropes were almost horizontal behind it. It must have been going 100mph. I saw something dangling from one rope; I assumed it must be a dummy or doll."
The girls' parents, from another base in northern Germany, and other spectators were left screaming for help as the girl flew out of sight. Five minutes later the wind dropped, the rain stopped and the sun came out.
A helicopter, hired to give show-goers brief tours, scoured the area. On the ground, the British military police and the German authorities began a search operation.
Then, two hours after the freak wind, they received a call from the police in Hamminkeln, near Wesel, 40 miles to the north.
Ludger Zellman, 37, saw the balloon tangled in a crane on the drive to his parents' farm. He said: "I looked from where the balloon seemed to have come from and I saw something red and white.
"I walked over. It looked like a doll, completely white. Then I realised it was a human body. I first thought if there was anything I could do but I realised it was too late. There was a rope still around her right arm.
"It was a terrible thing to see. I have a daughter of the same age. It makes you swallow very hard."
The show was cancelled and a joint investigation by the Army and German police has begun.
The Ministry of Defence said: "All concerned with the show are greatly shocked and saddened at this tragic occurence."
On August 28, 1988, a incident involving the Italian Air Force's Azzuro Aerobatic Team at Ramstein Air Force Base in (West) Germany killed 73 people.
Could that have been the accident you were thinking of?
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