A Surprising Arrival in the Backyard
Hunter Perrin was watching TV on a Saturday morning when his doorbell started ringing. He opened the door to find a neighbor who excitedly told him, “They just landed in your backyard.” At first, Perrin had no idea what the neighbor was talking about. It wasn’t until his wife, Jenna, who had heard an unusual sound just before the commotion, called him over to the back door that he realized what had happened.
A hot-air balloon had made an emergency landing in their Temecula home’s backyard. As they stepped outside, they saw 13 people in a basket waving at them and saying, “Good morning.”
The Video That Captured the Moment
Perrin shared a video on Saturday that captured the couple’s astonishment at the unusual sight. The footage from a security camera shows the basket of the hot-air balloon swooping through the backyard as the passenger aircraft lands right up against their fence. In the video, which includes footage taken by Perrin on a cellphone, the passengers all appear in good spirits despite their unexpected detour.
“Even watching the video, it’s still hard to believe that that actually happened,” Perrin said. “I put that video together after everything happened, and I thought, as I was uploading it, ‘Oh, this will be neat. It’ll make some rounds on social media and maybe it’ll be popular in Temecula, because it’s a Temecula local thing.'”
The Emergency Landing
Jenna Perrin explained that the hot-air balloon had run low on fuel while hovering and “hoping for winds,” necessitating the emergency landing. “I didn’t realize how scary it can be if you have no winds,” she said. She was also amazed the pilot was able to maneuver around their house and trees to land in their backyard without any injuries or property damage.
The video follows as the passengers exit the basket before the aircraft is pushed along the backyard away from the fence to a position where it can “jump” over the house. Eventually, the balloon takes off and is guided to the street in front of the house as neighbors gather in the front yard to watch.
A Scene From Pixar
“As it was coming up, everybody started to laugh because it looked like [a scene] from Pixar’s ‘Up,'” Perrin said. The entire ordeal, from when the aircraft touched down until it was packed up on a truck, took about two hours.
A Unique Experience
Hunter Perrin, a software developer who created Port87, said in the two years that they’d been living in their home they had previously only caught the occasional glimpse of hot-air balloons in the distance. “A neighbor told us we are in a hot-air balloon flight path,” Perrin said. “We didn’t even realize that. But now we certainly know.”
“The pilot did a fantastic job,” he added. “I didn’t get his name, and I kind of wish I did, because I’d love to go buy them a beer. Thanks for avoiding our house!”
