Operating high altitude weather balloon flights is fun, exciting and something very unique that most people don’t encounter or think about on a regular basis. Over the years, we’ve been featured by a few news outlets for some of the work we’ve achieved and the experiments we’ve attempted. Below is a collection of some of the outlets we’ve been featured by that have reported on our flights.

In March 2017 during our flight, OLHZN-5, we experienced an unexpected close flyby from an Airbus A319 operated by Delta Air Lines. This story was reported on by a number of news outlets in June 2017 when we published the video of the flyby on our YouTube Channel. This was an incredibly unique moment capturing a cruising jet in such close proximity so it was definitely news worthy. However, some of the news outlets sensationalized the video footage by calling it a “near miss”, “near collision” or “dangerous encounter”. These terms are all inaccurate. Although the close proximity makes for a surprisingly unique video, these types of weather balloon passes occur very regularly around the world and are completely safe and all weather balloon flights are regulated by aviation authorities like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States.  All our flights follow all the governing regulations to ensure safe operations and the FAA even watched our video after receiving anonymous reports and they had no concerns with the encounter. Our weather balloon flights go through thorough coordination with the FAA before, during and after the flight. It’s a very unique video, but not dangerous and not that unusual of a situation in the skies. See our Flight Safety & Regulations page for details about the safety procedures that the FAA has us follow to ensure safety for all.