According to a police source, there are two hypotheses on the table: either the man suffered sudden death, or he drowned. In this case, it could be a case of negligent homicide. In addition to the pilot, there were a dozen passengers who were already being questioned by the authorities.
Alexandra Santos was the victim’s girlfriend and has already been interviewed by the PJ. In the statements she made to Agência Lusa, the woman explained that “the balloon started to tilt towards the water, because of the winds, and, at the speed we were going, the pilot also had no chance and we hit the water, but very close to the shore. We all got wet feet.” Then, the engine “continued to move” towards the interior of the reservoir, with the pilot suggesting that some passengers “go outside to pull the basket ashore”.
According to the police source, two men jumped into the water. One passenger, who managed to get back on board and the victim, who did not get back into the basket. According to the witness interviewed by Lusa, “the balloon rose” and “hit the water again”, now “further away from the shore”. The victim was left behind, in the water, in an area where he would not have been able to stand. He was alive.
The balloon landed some distance away, in an olive grove, and the pilot gave the coordinates of the lost passenger’s location to a ground team, who found him dead, in the water, far from the shore. The GNR was called and arrived at the scene at 10:29 am, more than an hour after the incident.
The first version of events pointed to suicide; the second for an illness that led the passenger to ask the pilot to land. The truth, apparently, is different.
Also speaking to Lusa, a person responsible for Passageiros do Vento, owner of the balloon, considers that “legally, it was not a balloon accident” and that a person “ceases to be a passenger when they voluntarily leave the balloon”. For Guido Santos, “this does not mean that the company cannot have civil liability, but, at an aeronautical level, there was no accident”,
