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Court Fines Canadian $26,500 For 'Unconscionably Stupid' Balloon-Chair Flight (www.cbc.ca)
In 2015, 27-year-old Daniel Boria tied over 100 helium balloons to a lawn chair and floated 2.5 miles above Calgary, "getting in the way of commercial aircraft and putting hundreds of lives at risk," reports the CBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Boria was ordered to pay $26,500 [USD $18,822] in fines when he was sentenced Friday, after pleading guilty in December to dangerous operation of an aircraft for the 2015 stunt... In handing down the sentence provincial court Judge Bruce Fraser called Boria's stunt "dumb and dangerous" and "unconscionably stupid. There was nothing fantastic, fun or exhilarating about it... There is no precedent for so foolish an escapade"...
On July 5, 2015, Boria tied $13,000 worth of industrial-sized balloons to a Canadian Tire lawn chair and took to the skies to promote his cleaning company, with the plan to parachute into the Calgary Stampede chuckwagon races. Uncooperative weather forced him to bail early, and winds pushed his landing to Ogden Road, where he was arrested by police who had been monitoring Boria since he was spotted above the Stampede grounds... During the time he was in the air, 24 airplanes took off and landed in Calgary.
The judge agreed that $20,000 of the fine should be donated to a charity of Boria's choice, and later Boria "said the stunt was worthwhile and he has no regrets."
On July 5, 2015, Boria tied $13,000 worth of industrial-sized balloons to a Canadian Tire lawn chair and took to the skies to promote his cleaning company, with the plan to parachute into the Calgary Stampede chuckwagon races. Uncooperative weather forced him to bail early, and winds pushed his landing to Ogden Road, where he was arrested by police who had been monitoring Boria since he was spotted above the Stampede grounds... During the time he was in the air, 24 airplanes took off and landed in Calgary.
The judge agreed that $20,000 of the fine should be donated to a charity of Boria's choice, and later Boria "said the stunt was worthwhile and he has no regrets."
Odd that the judge calls this "unprecedented", when there have been multiple similar instances, and Lawn Chair Larry was internationally infamous.
if he gets a donation receipt from the charities, he will be able to claim a tax credit. He chose to split his donation to the veteran's food bank, and the Canadian Legion Poppy fund, also a veteran's organisation.
Apparently neither the judge nor the CBC has ever heard of Larry Walters balloon assisted lawnchair flight in 1982. Nor of his several imitators. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Walters was fined $4000(US) -- reduced to $1500 on appeal -- for operating an aircraft within an airport traffic area "without establishing and maintaining two-way communications with the control tower." According to Wikipedia "A charge of operating a "civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an airworthiness certificate" was dropped, as it was not applicable to his class of aircraft."
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey