Alfred Wegener: Difference between revisions
→Second flight
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{{Cquote | ''There we floated, between two cloud layers and we could again see the sun. So that at noon, we were able to measure its altitude and investigate the eclipse as it progressed. The truly remarkable reduction of the sun's brightness was just right for our mission, but it also made a strong emotional impression''||| Alfred Wegener in ''"Astronomische Ortsbestimmungen in Luftballon"''}}
When they finally dumped enough ballast to rise above the overcast layer, the vista was stunning : a sea of white clouds with dark plumes convecting rapidly upward. They could hear thunder from every direction. Eventually, a huge thunderhead, black as iron, built up near them.
Gerdien openeved the valve on the gas cylinder to inflate the balloon further. A little after 3:00 pm, they reached an altitude of just over 6 kilometers. It was cold, almost -24°C. As soon as the gas in the cylinder was exhausted, the balloon began to sink.
The balloon descended into the cloud layer. Soaked with water once again, they began to fall rapidly. Gerdien jettisoned two sacks of ballast, but this did not entirely control the descent. The winds near the surface were brisk, about 15 meters per second. The ballon was moving very fast across the plain below. They knew they were in for a rough landing, as the means of stopping the balloon consisted entirely in tossing the anchor overboard and waiting for it to catch something and jerk the balloon basket to a halt.
Seconds after tossing the anchor, Alfred felt the basket tip and realized that the anchor must have caught.
Suddenly, there was a tearing sound. The anchor rope had torn completely away and the balloon picked up speed again. Gerdien, in this critical moment, pulled the ripcord and deflated the balloon. Then came the impact.
{{Cquote|''I saw, in a flash, everything go topsy-turvy. I realized that I was being dragged along the ground, then I felt sharp pull on my body, and that my left foot was tangled. Then my left boot pulled off and I was free. My stiff collar dug itself into the earth like a plow and my head was covered with dirt ''}}
Alfred got unsteadily to his feet and went looking for his boot. He was delighted to find both it and Gerdien, who had a worse landing. Gerdien had hit his knee very hard and wrenched his left shoulder. Searching the area around, Alfred managed to find his house keys and eventually his hat as well.
Limping to a nearby farmsted, they learned that they had crashed near the village of Novy Miastov, almost 500 kilometers to the east of their home base, inside the borders of Russian Poland. They spent the night quartered in the village school.
It took three days to get out of Poland. They packed up the balloon after their sleepless night in the school building and it was dark before they set out under escort for the nearest Russian military outpost. The road was terrible. Their cart driver, unable to see anything in the gloom, hit a deep rut and pitched them into a roadside pond. Drenched, muddy and sore, they eventually found their instruments and their day packs in the deepest part of the pond.
At the Russian fort they were finally conducted to a room and allowed to sleep. On the next day, they were examined by the post surgeon. The surgeon took them to lunch and that night the colonel threw a full Russian banquet in their honor. On the following day, transit visas arrived from Warsaw. They were allowed to return to Germany.
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