Record sky dive attempt fails as balloon drifts off

A skydiver’s hope to set a new free-fall record was dealt another blow yesterday when his ride to the sky left without him.

French skydiver Michel Fournier’s bid to set a new altitude free-fall record was scuppered when the balloon that was to carry him into the stratosphere separated from his gondola.

Fournier has spent 20 years and nearly €15 million on his quest.

The balloon was reported to have cost at least €150,000 and Fournier was said to have already exhausted his finances.

The balloon had been scheduled to take off from North Battleford in western Canada’s Saskatchewan province, but somehow detached from the gondola and drifted away, leaving the 64-year old parachutist behind on the ground.

It was the latest in a string of unsuccessful efforts by Fournier to enter the record books by plunging 40 kilometers from the edge of space to Earth.

He had been attempting to break four world records: fastest free-fall, longest free-fall, highest jump, and highest altitude reached by a man in a balloon.

“It’s a blow,” Fournier told. “But we’ll try again and we’ll succeed.”

He said it was his life’s dream to make the jump, which would have begun at a height four times the cruising altitude of a commercial jet.

On Monday, strong winds forced Fournier to postpone the launch.

He had two earlier unsuccessful attempts in 2002 and 2003. His balloon tore on the last attempt and he had bought a new one for this trial, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The new balloon, inflated with 600,000 cubic meters of helium, escaped minutes before its scheduled take off and floated into the sky.

Fournier had planned to wear sophisticated camera equipment during his fall to record the event, including the moment he broke the sound barrier.

After escaping, the balloon was retrieved several miles from the launch site, but cannot be reused.