2024 in review: Hot air balloon crashes along Highway 63

Dec. 25—ROCHESTER — A hot air balloon pilot and two passengers escaped serious injury when it flew too low clipping power lines along U.S. Highway 63 in Rochester in March this year.

The video, captured by Minnesota Department of Transportation cameras, of the hot air balloon gondola being sheared from its envelope and crashing beside a highway went viral after several news organizations shared it.

Fortunately, the crash looked worse than it was for the people on board.

Michael Lesmeister, who was piloting the balloon wrote he “vaguely” remembered the fall in his written statement to crash investigators.

The crash happened March 20, 2024. The MnDOT video shows the balloon descending as it crossed an open field heading toward U.S. Highway 63 before striking power lines on the west side of the highway between 40th and 48th Streets Southwest. The pilot’s target landing area was a field on the east side of the highway, according to crash reports.

The impact with the power lines severed 12 of the 16 steel cables connecting the gondola to the envelope. The four remaining wires snapped from the weight overload, according to a report by the federal National Transportation Safety Board.

The report cites Lesmeister’s “failure to maintain clearance from power lines while landing in a field.”

Lesmeister told Twin Cities TV station KSTP that a sudden wind gust changed the balloon’s altitude and was the likely cause of the crash.

The shower of sparks from the contact with the power lines ignited dozens of small grass fires in the field that kept members of the Rochester Fire Department at the crash site for hours after the crash.

Lesmeister was cleared to fly again within a few weeks of the crash. His colorful balloons can occasionally be seen in the Rochester skyline. His company, Lesmeister Balloon Company, was initially started in Rochester and now operates out of Pepin, Wisconsin.

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