Louis Blériot of 1909. Like some of the other prizes offered by the paper, it was widely seen as nothing more than a way to gain cheap publicity: the Paris newspaper "Le Matin" commenting that there was no chance of the prize being won. The English Channel had been crossed by an unmanned hydrogen balloon in 1784 and a manned crossing by Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries followed in 1785. Blériot, who intended to fly across the Channel in his Type XI monoplane, had three rivals for the prize, the most serious being Hubert Latham, a French national of English extraction flying
2012 Ljubljana Marshes hot air balloon crash an improper landing procedure, as well as ignoring the bad weather warning and the flight rules. In a preliminary hearing, the pilot denied all these statements, pleading not guilty to the charge of causing general danger. The court trial began in November 2016. Two years later, the district court exonerated the defendant, based on an opinion of a foreign expert. 2012 Ljubljana Marshes hot air balloon crash The 2012 Ljubljana hot air balloon crash occurred on the Ljubljana Marshes in central Slovenia on 23 August 2012, killing six people while 26 others survived. A hot air balloon carrying 32 passengers,