A balloonist who said he'd cross the Atlantic Ocean using hundreds of helium-filled balloons landed in Newfoundland on Friday, missing his goal location, France, by about 2,000 miles.
In a real-life Up move, Jonathan Trappe used an enormous cluster of multicolored balloons attached to a carrier to transport him from Maine to the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
"This doesn't look like France," the 39-year-old IT consultant from Raleigh, NC posted on his Facebook upon landing.
Trappe was forced to land after he reported having issues controlling his balloons on Thursday evening, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AP, but he managed to ground the carrier safely, and didn't require medical attention when he arrived on the ground.
Trappe wanted to be the first person to ever cross the Atlantic by way of helium balloons, instead of the usual hot-air balloon mode of transport. He blew up 300 balloons and embarked on his journey on Thursday morning. By the time the sun started to set, he'd made serious headway, and was moving in the direction of Newfoundland. A couple hours following liftoff, he posted that he'd arrived on the Canadian island.
Throughout his entire journey, Trappe talked to a search and rescue center stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, according to Lt. Steve Henley of the RCMP, who talked to AP. He said Trappe wanted to hike out of the rural area where he'd landed.
If he had, indeed, made it to his projected landing site in France, the trip was slated to take around three to six days.
"The Atlantic Ocean has been crossed many times, and in many ways, but never quite like this," Trappe wrote on his website before he took off into the sky, buoyed only by a sea of pink, yellow, orange, green and purple balloons.
This isn't the first time Trappe has attempted to travel by helium balloons: in 2010, he traversed the English Channel while riding in a basket tied to a pack of balloons. The basket doubled as a lifeboat, in case of emergency.
