Hot air balloon pilot Maxime Trépanier, 26, died in an accident near the St-Jean-sur-Richelieu hot air balloon festival.
The pilot who died in a accident Sunday at a Quebec hot air balloon festival was on the ground trying to help a fellow balloonist land when he was yanked up in the air before falling to his death.
Maxime Trépanier, 26, had just landed his own balloon and was in a farm field, southeast of Montreal. "The victim was on the ground. He was trying to help people relocate another gondola. He was holding on to a cable and when the gondola began to rise, he didn't let go for a reason we still haven't determined," said a police spokeswoman, Sûreté du Québec Sergeant Joyce Kemp.
Police investigators have ruled out criminal negligence, Sgt. Kemp added.
Mr. Trépanier, a second-generation balloonist, was taking part in the 30th edition of the the International Balloon Festival of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
On Sunday morning, after 6 a.m., dozens of balloonists took off from the vicinity of the Saint-Jean airport, south of Montreal.
The 26-year-old Mr. Trépanier landed his balloon near Mont-Saint-Gregoire, about 8 kilometres from Saint-Jean. His father, Normand, who landed in an adjoining field, told TVA News that his son was trying to help another balloonist who was coming down near him.
"The woman handed him the line and he told her he would take her to another field," the elder Mr. Trépanier said.
He said his son wasn't tangled in the cable but was merely holding it with his hands.
"We don't know what happened but the balloon started going up in the air," Normand Trépanier said, adding that witnesses shouted at the balloonist to open her deflation port, to let out the hot air and lower her craft.
For some reason, however, the balloon kept rising, pulling the young man upward until he fell from a height of more than 100 metres, the elder Mr. Trépanier said.
"I'm devastated," he said, recalling how keen his son was about taking off that morning.
Like his father, Mr. Trépanier was a firefighter for the city of Saint-Jean. His first flight as a passenger took place when he was only two years old and he became a certified pilot in his late teens, said a former instructor, Léon Burman.
Mr. Trépanier was married and a father of two, said Marie-Claude Beauvais, a festival spokeswoman.
The festival, which bills itself as the largest such gathering in the country, is continuing its events but balloons were grounded on Sunday night, their burners firing up in tribute to Mr. Trépanier.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has sent a team to investigate Mr. Trépanier's death.
The accident came six months after TSB chairwoman Wendy Tadros complained in a note updated last February that the federal government was doing too little about balloon safety.
"Balloons are classified as `general aviation' and assigned a much lower priority–so low, in fact, that a large balloon that carries paying passengers is unlikely to ever receive a government safety inspection," Ms. Tadros wrote.
Confidence in the industry has been shaken since 2007 when two separate incidents in western Canada left two dead and three people severely injured, she said.
Almost 500 balloons are registered nationwide but there is a lack of adequate standards and regulations, her note said, adding that past TSB recommendations to Transport Canada are still being assessed and have not been implemented.
" Simply put," Ms. Tadros wrote, "not enough has been done."
Tu Thanh Ha