{"id":278179,"date":"2026-04-21T07:29:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/278179\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T07:29:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:29:20","slug":"hot-air-balloon-with-13-people-safely-lands-in-california-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/278179\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot air balloon with 13 people safely lands in California yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

A balloon landed in a Southern California backyard \u2014 a balloon with 13 people.<\/p>\n

The enormous hot air balloon, with a pilot and passengers in the basket, descended perfectly Saturday on a small plot of grass at a home in Temecula. Hunter Perrin said he had no idea that he had visitors until a neighbor alerted him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching TV and my wife was doing yoga,\u201d Perrin told The Associated Press. \u201cThere was a man standing in front of my door saying, \u2018They just landed.\u2019 What? I was very confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there they were, a group of anxious people suddenly relieved to be on solid ground. Perrin\u2019s grassy backyard patch is only about 10 feet (3 meters) wide. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unbelievable, like something out of a Disney fairy tale,\u201d Jenna Perrin said. \u201cThe balloon didn\u2019t hit our house or our trees. It was kissing the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brianna Avalos and her husband were riding in the balloon to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. She said the pilot informed passengers that he needed to make an emergency landing because of low fuel and a shift in winds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I was like, \u2018Oh my God! We\u2019re in a backyard! This is crazy!\u2019\u201d Avalos told KABC-TV.<\/a><\/p>\n

The blue balloon with gold stars and a crescent moon image was a spectacle as it came to rest in the backyard, towering over Perrin\u2019s home. The pilot disembarked the passengers, returned aloft and then landed the balloon nearby in the street, where it was dismantled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an amazing pilot,\u201d Avalos said.<\/p>\n

Denni Barrett, the owner of Magical Adventure, which provides the balloon rides, declined to identify the pilot but said he had \u201cexercised great judgment\u201d and \u201cdone the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our landings are in wine country,\u201d Barrett said, referring to vineyards in California\u2019s Riverside County. \u201cUsually they\u2019re bigger backyards.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A balloon landed in a Southern California backyard \u2014 a balloon with 13 people. The enormous hot air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[29695,1956,4161,120006,7,9,8,20,5881,3418,18,120007,4102,44623,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-278179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-air-incidents","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az-state-wire","11":"tag-brianna-avalos","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-california-headlines","14":"tag-california-news","15":"tag-climate","16":"tag-climate-and-environment","17":"tag-disaster-planning-and-response","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-jenna-perrin","20":"tag-natural-disasters","21":"tag-oddities","22":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}