In Austria, a hot air balloon crashed twice on Saturday, hurting nine people when a hard landing reportedly knocked the pilot and co-pilot out of the basket and sent a few passengers back up into the air on their own.
Two of the passengers were critically hurt in the collision in the region of Bucklige Welt, which is known for its mountainous terrain, according to Sonja Kellner of the Lower Austrian Red Cross, who spoke to news agency APA. They were discovered at Untereck together with two other passengers who had minor injuries.
The remaining five passengers were discovered with minor wounds close to Stang, some 3 miles (5 kilometres) away.
According to the Kurier daily newspaper, the disaster happened just before the balloon was set to descend on a meadow.
Four persons, including the pilot and co-pilot, were knocked out of the basket when it allegedly dropped too swiftly and rebounded off the ground. Before the balloon and its five surviving passengers took flight once more, they were pulled along for a few yards.
Even yet, the pilot was able to give phone instructions to the fliers on how to perform an emergency landing. Kurier said that the balloon eventually came to rest in a woodland.
The two badly hurt passengers were flown by chopper to nearby medical facilities.