"Hot air causes the balloon to rise. Let the balloon cool, or let some of the hot air out—we go down. The steerage comes from the wind. So we can control up and down very expertly, as you can see. But left and right, that's entirely by the wind."
"We look at the forecast to know what the expected winds are. We use these very sophisticated pieces of instrumentation, called helium balloons, the morning of the flight, to see what the actual wind conditions are."
"After that, we pick our launch site where we think we'll be landing at the end of an hour. We reverse-engineer the entire flight. In this case, the wind conditions changed dramatically, and that's how the pilot ended up above that neighborhood."
Hot air balloons rise due to heated air and descend by cooling or releasing air. Direction is determined by wind, making it challenging to control. Pilots assess wind conditions using helium balloons before flights to plan landing sites. In this instance, changing wind conditions led to an unexpected landing in a neighborhood. Ground crews follow the balloon to assist with landing and packing. Safety is prioritized in choosing landing locations, especially when fuel is low.
Read at WIRED
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