PROVO, Utah — The pig couldn’t fly, the cowboy got away, and the pilot’s OK.
So it went Thursday at an Independence Day festival in Utah, where officials said a pig-shaped hot air balloon descended quickly to the ground after hitting a Wyoming cowboy-themed entry.
Paul Warner, a festival executive, said the licensed pilot of the fallen balloon suffered minor burns to his face. He was treated at the scene and released.
The balloons were rising at a field near downtown Provo when the pig entry crashed into the basket of the cowboy balloon. The collision ripped a hole in the nylon fabric of the piggy bank balloon, and a piece of plastic caught fire as it descended.
The fire was not extensive, said Christopher Liechty, a spokesman for Bank of American Fork, which sponsored the balloon known as Seymour, its mascot.
The pilot, Erwin Oertli, was the only person in the balloon and suffered minor burns from melted plastic that dripped onto his face, the bank said in a statement.
“What saved my bacon was that the head of the pig held a lot of hot air and helped the balloon to descend at a safer rate,” Oertli said in the statement.
Witness Kevin Auernig, 37, of Provo said he saw the accident at America’s Freedom Festival Balloon Fest and watched the balloon come down and land in a fenced construction zone. He joked that parts of the balloon got stuck on a tree and looked like strips of bacon.
