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Search for Flying Priest Scaled Down
April 25, 2008 04:26 PM
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by
findingDulcinea Staff
Brazilian rescue teams are narrowing operations to find Father Adelir Antonio de Carli, who blew out to sea after strapping himself to 1,000 helium-filled balloons.
30-Second Summary
The missing Roman Catholic priest took off Sunday from the coastal city of Paranagua. Equipped with flotation equipment, a satellite phone and GPS, the clergyman was blown off course Sunday night and has been out of contact since early Monday morning.
So far, a bundle of balloons discovered Wednesday off the coast of Brazil has been the only sign of Father Carli.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that the Brazilian air force ended its search Friday, while firefighters continue to scour the beaches and islands where he is likely to wash up. However, authorities say it is increasingly unlikely that the priest will be found alive.
Father Carli was trying to break the 19-hour world record for most hours flying with balloons in order to raise funds to build a rest stop for truck drivers traveling through Paranagua.
Although the priest isn’t the world’s first “cluster ballooner,” his charitable intentions do distinguish from his lawn-chair toting predecessors. For example, Los Angeles native “Lawn Chair Larry,” or Larry Walters, ascended to 16,000 feet by attaching his Sears chair to 45 balloons in 1982.
Then in 2007, an Oregonian gas station owner named Kent Couch strapped 105 balloons to his lawn chair, riding it all the way to 13,000 feet.
So far, a bundle of balloons discovered Wednesday off the coast of Brazil has been the only sign of Father Carli.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that the Brazilian air force ended its search Friday, while firefighters continue to scour the beaches and islands where he is likely to wash up. However, authorities say it is increasingly unlikely that the priest will be found alive.
Father Carli was trying to break the 19-hour world record for most hours flying with balloons in order to raise funds to build a rest stop for truck drivers traveling through Paranagua.
Although the priest isn’t the world’s first “cluster ballooner,” his charitable intentions do distinguish from his lawn-chair toting predecessors. For example, Los Angeles native “Lawn Chair Larry,” or Larry Walters, ascended to 16,000 feet by attaching his Sears chair to 45 balloons in 1982.
Then in 2007, an Oregonian gas station owner named Kent Couch strapped 105 balloons to his lawn chair, riding it all the way to 13,000 feet.
Headline Links: Rescue teams call off search for missing priest
Rescue teams are reducing their efforts to find Father Adelir Antonio de Carli. So far, the only signs of his whereabouts have been floating clusters of balloons, some as far as 150 km away from where he last made contact with port authorities on Monday morning.
Source: Australian Broadcasting Company
A bundle of balloons that belonged to Father Carli was found Wednesday off the coast of Brazil. During a phone interview with the Brazilian TV Channel Globo on Sunday, he reported having difficulty using his GPS device and said that he was “very cold, but fine.” He reported reaching an altitude of 20,000 feet. Before losing contact, he said he would have to land on water because he was “losing height.”
Source: The BBC
Video: ‘Priest Goes Missing During Balloon Flight’
An Associated Press news report shows Father Carli before he took off on his flight.
Source: YouTube
Related Topics: Lawn Chair Larry and Kent Couch
Larry Walters, a former truck driver known as “Lawn Chair Larry,” was awarded an “honorable mention” by the Darwin Awards, which salutes “the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it.” He took flight equipped with only some sandwiches, Miller Lite, and a pellet gun. His plan had been to fly up to 30 feet high in his own backyard—instead he ascended to 16,000 feet. When asked why he had done it, he replied, “A man can’t just sit around.”
Source: The Darwin Awards
Kent Couch, an Oregonian gas station owner who took his lawn chair up to 13,000 feet in 2007, surprised an airplane pilot who radioed to his control tower that he had just passed “a guy in a lawn chair with a gun.” He used 105 balloons to make his flight and carried a global positioning system device, a two-way radio, a digital camcorder, a cell phone, instruments to measure altitude and speech, and four plastic bags holding water to act as a ballast. “When you’re a little kid and you’re holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind,” Couch told the Bend Bulletin in Oregon.
Source: KATU
Reference: Danny Deckchair
The Internet Movie Database describes the 2003 romantic comedy “Danny Deckchair,” in which “an Aussie becomes a national sensation when he lifts off in his deck chair tied to balloons.”
Source: IMDB
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