MADRID, 14 (EUROPA PRESS)
One person has died and five others have been injured, three of them seriously, in a hot air balloon crash that occurred during landing in the Dutch region of Friesland, in the northern Netherlands, local authorities reported.
The balloon, one of the largest in the Netherlands, had taken off Wednesday afternoon from the town of Joure with 34 people on board, all of them adults. At around 9:00 p.m., the aircraft descended sharply and hit the ground before being dragged across a grassy area, according to a spokesperson for the regional government, quoted by public television NOS.
Meteorological services had warned of strong winds in the area, which, in principle, shouldn't have posed a problem for a balloon of this size. However, at the time of landing, the winds reached gusts of more than 30 kilometers per hour, which, according to initial indications, would have been instrumental in causing the accident.
