Balloon makes emergency landing in shopping mall
27/02/2005 - 14:25:11A hot-air balloon carrying six Germans made an emergency landing today at a shopping centre in northern Italy, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
The passengers – five men and a woman – were slighly bruised but no one was seriously hurt.
Emergency services in Sondrio, just south of the border with Switzerland, were flooded with calls and police and emergency response teams rushed to the scene about noon (11am Irish time), after motorists called to report that a hot-air balloon was descending too rapidly in the nearby town of Rogolo.
ANSA said initial reports suggested the hot air balloon might have taken off from Switzerland and had to land after it began to deflate.
