ROCHESTER — As far as conclusions go, an investigation by the federal National Transportation Safety Board into a hot air balloon accident in Rochester that happened earlier this year doesn’t stray too far from what millions of people observed in the video that went viral.

The NTSB report released last week concludes in a succinct one-sentence statement that the probable cause of the accident was pilot Michael Lesmeister’s “failure to maintain clearance from power lines while landing in a field.”

An NTSB investigator did not travel to the accident site. A disclaimer notes that the purpose of its investigations is not to “assign fault or blame for an accident.”

Lesmeister was cleared to pilot again three weeks after the accident, he said.

The crash, which happened March 20, 2024, was the talk of the town for several days.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation video shows the balloon descending rapidly to the ground and making contact with power lines along U.S. Highway 63 South between 40th Street Southwest and 48th Street Southwest. The collision created an explosive burst of sparks and an electrical arc that separated the basket from the envelope.

The basket plummeted the rest of the way to the ground. Miraculously, Lesmeister and the two passengers climbed out of the basket with only minor injuries.

“(A) loud pop crackle was heard, momentary stop, then (a) crackle of shower of sparks,” Lesmeister stated in a three-page handwritten accident report about the terrifying moment. “I vaguely remember the fall, (the) impact with (the) surface. (The) Gondola lay down in a forward motion face down in (a) dry grass ditch.”

In addition to Lesmeister, there were two crew members who served on the ground: Dan Campion as a ground chaser and David Greenwaldt as a ground crew member. Mark Schafer of Oronoco and his stepson were the passengers.

On the bottom of the basket is a picture of Ben Schafer, Mark Schafer’s son. A veteran, Ben was 37 when he died tragically at home, according to his obituary. Lesmeister gives free air balloon rides to veterans and their families to honor their service.

Lesmeister said that the forecast that day predicted strong, gusting winds in the morning that were expected to drop off later in the day. The sky was clear when the hot balloon was launched around early evening.

Fifteen minutes into the flight, the balloon began a descent. As Lesmeister approached a landing spot parallel to Highway 63 on the west side of the road, the wind abruptly shifted. Because of the speed of the wind shear, there was not enough time to lift the balloon clear of the fast-approaching powerlines.

With the surface wind picking up speed, Lesmeister tried to get to the ground as soon as possible by pulling the deflation port at the top of the balloon down to release heat from it.

He told his passengers to sit low in the basket because a hard impact with the surface tends to eject the passengers.

The 16 steel cables connecting the gondola to the envelope hit three power lines. The collision created an arc that severed 12 of the 16 cables. The four remaining wires snapped as a result of the overload.

After the crash landing, the three crawled out of the gondola, and except for bumps and bruises, miraculously free of grievous injury. The shower spark caused dozens of small grass fires in the field. With the help of some volunteers, the gondola was dragged away from the fires. The balloon envelope drifted away and was retrieved a mile away from a tree line.

Lesmeister believes there was an intervention that spared them from a more tragic outcome. He said the first 911 calls reported that there were four passengers in the basket when in actuality there were only three.

Lemeister believes Ben Schafer, whose memory is honored with his picture on the basket, was the fourth man.

“He broke our fall,” he said.

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