State Watch

Hot air balloon with 13 aboard makes emergency landing in California backyard

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by Isabella Paoletto - 04/21/26 10:24 AM ET

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by Isabella Paoletto - 04/21/26 10:24 AM ET

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(KSWB) — A hot air balloon carrying 13 people was forced to make an emergency landing in a Southern California backyard on Saturday.

The balloon landed perfectly in a patch of grass in the backyard of Hunter and Jenna Perrin’s Temecula, Calif., home.

Hunter said in an interview with Nexstar’s KSWB that he and his wife were home when he received a notification on his phone that a camera in their backyard had detected movement.

Then the doorbell started ringing over and over.

“I go and answer the door, and there’s this guy going, ‘They just landed in your backyard!'” said Hunter. He was even more confused when the neighbor added, “the hot air balloon.”

The Perrins sprinted to the glass door leading to their backyard to try to make sense of the bizarre encounter.

“There’s just 13 people in a basket waving at us, wishing us ‘good morning,'” Hunter said while laughing.

The hot air balloon, which is operated by the company Magical Adventure, was forced to make an emergency landing because of low fuel and a shift in winds, according to passenger Brianna Avalos.

Avalos told The Associated Press that she and her husband had gone on the hot air balloon ride to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. The company says on its website that it specializes in romantic balloon rides over the Temecula vineyards.

Once the pilot disembarked all of the passengers, the massive blue balloon returned to the air and landed on a nearby street, where it was dismantled.

“The pilot did such an amazing job, just absolutely nailing the landing right in the backyard,” said Hunter. “Our backyard has this big hill next to the grass, so the grass part is pretty small, and he set the balloon down just right in the middle.”

Jenna said that the whole outlandish scenario reminded her of something out of the Disney Pixar film “Up.”

“It just looked like it was going to take the house up with it,” said Hunter.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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