TikToker films heart-stopping hot air balloon crash in California: ‘Everybody hang on’

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Louise Thomas

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A dramatic video captured the terrifying moment that a hot air balloon crashed into a California field in high winds.

TikTok user Nicholas McCall was on his first ever balloon ride when the aircraft’s pilot was forced to crash-land it near Perris, California, 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

“My hot air balloon experience was going great until the winds picked up,” Mr McCall wrote in the caption for the video posted to the social media platform.

“Everybody hang on. Everybody hang on and stay in the basket,” the pilot can be heard shouting. “In the basket with me. Stay on. Stay on. Stay on.”

But that was not the end of the drama as the balloon’s basket bounced back up before crashing to the ground again and being dragged along through the dirt at a 45-degree angle.

The video footage cut off at that point, but Mr McCall took to TikTok to assure his followers that everyone had survived the accident.

“Tik tok we are all okay don’t delete,” he wrote of the video that has been liked more than 706,000 times.

Data shows that over a 12 year period, 78 balloon tours crashed in the US, according to a study by the National Library of Medicine.

The statistics show that 518 people were injured in crashes between 2000 and 2011, with 91 serious injuries and five deaths.

All of the fatalities were caused by balloons hitting fixed objects, and 78 per cent of the crashes were caused by high winds.