Hot air balloon pilot, Billy Sollocks of Basingstoke, Hants, frequently described as a 'daft bastard' by work colleagues earlier today narrowly averted complete disaster when, after losing control of his hot air balloon in the skies somewhere near Basingstoke, successfully executed a crash landing. Ish.
Sollocks was serenely floating above the Hampshire countryside when his balloon was struck by a shotgun round fired by an overenthusiastic clay pigeon shooter.
"I saw the balloon start to lose height quite rapidly," commented an observer.
Sollocks's six passengers looked on in horrified fascination as the balloonist struggled to crash land the aircraft.
"It crash landed on the concrete schoolyard," local schoolmistress Devilla Cruell said. "And it didn't half come down with a frigging bang."
Sollocks's passengers were thrown free of the balloon at the point of impact, leaving hero Sollock to hit the concrete head first.
"The man's a hero," said one deluded passenger.
"Yeah but he didn't half whack his fucking napper on that concrete," said another.
Sollocks was taken to Basingstoke Hospital for the Not Very Sensible where his condition was described as 'stable."
"The irony of it is," said the schoolmistress Devilla Cruell:
"On one side of the schoolyard there's a foam rubber storage yard, and on the other there's a big sewage processing plant. He'd have been much better off landing in either of those as opposed to the school playground. Instead, although he brought his passengers down safely, he's going to have to live with a seriously broken head for the rest of his life."
More as we get it.
