The Flight That Failed

He speaks with more emotion now and there is less measurement to his words. His rural face seems older than his age of 37. His hair is long, the antithesis to one set of his beliefs that rest heavily on God, country and flag. "I'll tell you," he says. "Any man can face a crisis, but it's the everyday living that can make an old man out of you. Life the way it is now has sapped the strength from people." All the while there is a softness to his voice, then a lostness as he talks of when he lived as a country boy where there were caves to be dug, tree houses in which to vanish and fish to catch.

It is difficult to define what is the lure of an adventure for someone. Few can express why it is that they must try the extraordinary, reach out for a moment beyond the comprehension of others. Adventure for its own sake seems enough, but often men are drawn to it and motivated by a myriad of things: physical hardship; danger; physical pleasure; companionship and solitude and escape; conquest; or maybe only the mystery of it all. Fortune, of course, usually lurks in the background, but it is rarely the primary force. "I'm not looking for money out of this," says Sparks, "but I'm not going to turn any down if it comes my way."

Sparks remembers the first time he saw a balloon several years back. "I was leading the parade of a band through a county fair audience," he says, "and I looked up and there it was." The man in the balloon looked down with absolute derision, or at least so Sparks thinks, and the insignificance that he felt engulfed Sparks for days. "The whole thing for me," he says, "was the total freedom of it all where people can't get at you, one dreamlike move from boredom. Well, I can't do anything halfway. I gave ballooning everything I had. And it was just what I needed."

Sparks speaks of ballooning with the enthusiasm of an amateur, but he has had over 500 ascensions and holds the world hot-air balloon duration record of 11 hours and 14 minutes. The trip across the Atlantic has consumed his being for the last three years and the route to this airstrip way up in Maine has been circuitous and painful and monetarily debilitating. He sat in offices for days, waiting for money promised to his project, and finally left with only the sound of the bankers' shuffle in his ears. He combed libraries for research material, drove 1,800 miles to the Bureau of Mines in Amarillo for a day and a half of study into gases and the effect sun has on them.

Finally, he put it all together. He was certain that the Atlantic could be crossed in a balloon. There was sound basis for it meteorologically. Hard, detailed preparation was what it would take, along with a break in the weather, and then the Atlantic—one of the great white whales in adventure—could be had. He knew the risks and what had happened to those who have tried since 1958. A balloon called The Small World, crewed by four Britons and in flight from the Canary Islands to the West Indies, went down in a storm. All were rescued. In August of 1968 two Canadian balloonists took off from Halifax for Europe; they were becalmed off Nova Scotia, and both were rescued. And then there was The Free Life, which left Long Island in September of 1970. The crew was Pam and Rod Anderson, wife and husband, she an aspiring actress and he a son-in-law from a modest background trying to prove his mettle to a wealthy father-in-law; and the pilot from England, Malcolm Brighton, who was heavily in debt and saw the trip as an exit. Brighton was the only one with experience. Less than a day and a half after takeoff a message was received saying that they were southeast of Newfoundland and "falling fast into the sea." No trace of the three or the balloon was ever found.

The probable technical causes of The Free Life's end seem innumerable, but the lack of professionalism and misguided motives were the major flaws. None of this seems to be evident in Sparks' campaign, but there is an undercurrent of bad feeling. His crew chief, who watches every detail concerning the balloon, is a man named Haddon Wood. A partner with Sparks in the conception of this trip, Wood becomes increasingly broken up by the fact that he will not be going as the reality of it nears. "I'm supposed to be on that balloon today," he says, and right up to the last moment he will consider tying himself to the tether and then climbing into the gondola with Sparks as it takes off; he has his bag and passport with him. Wood blames his rejection on what he calls "The Money." He says The Money wants this to be a solo flight; that way it is more dramatic on the market.

The Money is no enigma. Perhaps he is a disappointment because one expected to find him trying to prove a promotional point with Sparks and his balloon. But The Money looks at this flight purely for its market value. When asked why he is behind this trip, The Money says he wants to "buy a part of history." He says he feels like Queen Isabella. Most of the time he stays busy by looking out for anyone who may try to intrude on the commercial designs he has for himself and Sparks; even writers are questioned about their motives. "I mean," The Money says, "if you're going to turn this into a book, we want a piece of it." His last and most crass stroke is when he suggests loading the gondola up with brand name products for the journey, a supermarket in the sky, so to speak. The Money is resisted.

It has taken three hours to fill the balloon with the necessary helium, and now as light comes the Yankee Zephyr stands high and firm, far above any brazen indignities that have been and may be visited upon it, suddenly a force that diminishes all and anything below. There is not much else to do. There is a final check of all the balloon's systems. The crowd of about 1,000 moves closer to watch every move of Sparks, who is dressed in a red, white and blue jump suit and white boots. The women in the crowd wonder how he will feel being so alone, the men consider the danger of it all, and the kids are baffled as to how he will go to the bathroom. Sparks is ready now for the final step into a dream that began four years ago. Sparks kisses his two little girls, then embraces his mother, she with the Appalachian face and the resignation of a mother who has given up trying to understand.

It is all over in a moment. There is something inexpressibly sad about a balloon going off, a feeling of finality and a sense of things lost. Silently it glides up, and then it grows smaller. As it ghosts through the morning haze with its long tail it reminds one of a spider with a web flying in the wind, and there is a twinge of envy of a man who has found a way to be rid of the stamped-out hordes below with fallow imaginations and dehumanized souls. "When he clears land and sees that shoreline disappear," says one of his crew, "he will know that he is truly alone." A number of private planes follows Sparks and his balloon for a while and then leaves him moving northeast at 22 knots. He signs off, saying: "It's a going balloon...blue skies."

The balloon would go for only 22 hours and 50 minutes and a distance of 800 miles. At 8:25 p.m. Sparks was sleeping over North Cape Breton Island. At 9:25 p.m. he was awakened by a sudden explosion of sound he thought was a jet fighter. Coming to his senses, he realized he was in the middle of a freak thunderstorm, which had abruptly and inexplicably formed around him. "It was just plain rotten luck," the weatherman said later. "The odds were 1,000 to 1." Sparks gave a May Day transmission at 10:05 p.m., and at 4:35 a.m. he finally splashed down 45 miles northeast of St. John's, Newfoundland in six- to eight-foot seas. He was picked up by the Canadian Coast Guard at noon.