The circumstances surrounding the death of a 55-year-old man this Sunday morning at the Alqueva dam, in the Aldeia da Luz area, are not easy to uncover. What is certain is that the victim was taking part in a hot air balloon ride and was later found lifeless in an area of the immense water mirror of the Alqueva dam.
According to the commander of the Mourão Fire Department, Fábio Quintas, volunteers received an alert, at 10.19 am this Sunday, for “a victim fallen from a hot air balloon”. The body “was floating about 200 meters from the bank” when the warning reached the barracks.
The Mourão Firefighters mobilized an ambulance and a boat and a support vehicle, but when they arrived at the scene the body “was already on the bank”, with no one knowing how it got there. According to the firefighters, “the GNR did not allow the victim’s body” to be touched, as he was in cardiorespiratory arrest, and INEM was called, whose doctor declared him dead at the scene.
According to Fábio Quinta, it was the company organizing the tour that contacted the emergency services, through INEM, which contacted the Mourão Fire Department. “According to the alert, a person had fallen from a balloon”, he said, also surprised to be hearing different reports from the one that reached him through the emergency channels.
Quoted by the newspaper “Público”, the GNR of Évora reveals a different story of the incident. According to the Guard, the man asked to interrupt the trip when he was already in the air. The balloonist responded to the request and allowed the victim to leave the balloon, before resuming the flight, contacting the ground team.
A version corroborated to JN by another source, according to which the victim had a panic attack, while flying over the Mourão area. When the balloon company’s support team arrived at the scene, they found the man lifeless in the water, which coincides with the version of what was reported to firefighters about the position of the body at the time of the alert.
Contacted by JN, the GNR Territorial Command of Évora limited itself to informing that the case was now in the hands of the Judiciary Police and that they had no information to provide. He also declined to clarify why the Guard did not let the firefighters touch the victim’s body.
