{"id":328229,"date":"2025-08-08T15:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328229\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T15:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T15:45:10","slug":"school-responds-after-hot-air-balloon-crashes-into-roof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328229\/","title":{"rendered":"School responds after hot air balloon crashes into roof"},"content":{"rendered":"

One witness said it ‘looked like the people were going to fall out’<\/p>\n

The local leader of a school trust has said she is “thankful everyone is safe” after a hot air balloon from the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta hit a school building.<\/p>\n

The JLL-branded balloon was one of 90 balloons to lift off from Ashton Court<\/a> on Friday morning (August 8) in the first mass ascent of the fiesta.<\/p>\n

One resident of Knowle<\/a> West saw the balloon flying near the rooftops as she went to watch the spectacle at around 7am this morning.<\/p>\n

She managed to film the moment it bumped into the roof of Oasis Academy Connaught school<\/a> as it neared its scheduled landing site.<\/p>\n

Clare Robinson, regional director for South West Primary at Oasis Community Learning said no one was injured in the incident and the school was mostly unoccupied for the summer holidays.<\/p>\n

She added that some roof tiles suffered minor damage, which will be repaired, and that the school is “incredibly thankful that everyone is safe”.<\/p>\n

Clare said: “This morning, we were made aware of an incident involving a hot air balloon participating in the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. The balloon lost power and made contact with the roof of Oasis Academy Connaught.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re relieved to confirm that no one was harmed, and the academy was largely unoccupied due to the summer holidays. The situation was swiftly and professionally managed by our site manager, Rob Price, who was very local at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident caused some minor damage to the roof tiles, which are being repaired by a contractor as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

“Most importantly, we\u2019re incredibly thankful that everyone is safe and that the balloon was able to carefully land in the school field, without disturbing the festivities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain proud to be part of the Bristol community and hope everyone continues to enjoy the Balloon Fiesta this weekend, as we are.”<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta said: “During this morning’s incredible mass ascent of 90 hot air balloons<\/a>, one of the balloons clipped a roof as it was coming into land.<\/p>\n

“Everyone landed safely, and we are looking forward to a brilliant Fiesta weekend.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One witness said it ‘looked like the people were going to fall out’ The local leader of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,13467,748,2266,393,4884,16656,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-328229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-international-balloon-fiesta","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-knowle","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114993923626129078","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}