Billionaire's balloon attempt fails ... again

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

The wind gods have it in for billionaire adventurer Steve Fossett.

The man who has repeatedly tried to conquer the world in the air and on the sea has been grounded once again, his bubble, or at least his balloon, burst.

Yesterday, his fifth solo attempt to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon was aborted before it left the ground. The 50m-high envelope was ripped in a wind gust.

Standing demoralised in the middle of the Australian Outback, the 57-year-old hinted that he might finally give up his dream of solo circumnavigation.

This attempt alone has cost Mr Fossett $1.65 million.

"We have put so much into this particular attempt - emotionally, time, financially," he said at the launch site in the mining town of Kalgoorlie.

"It would be very difficult to mount another attempt with the same enthusiasm."

It is not the first time this year that winds have tormented the Chicago stockbroker's ventures.

In January, gales tore the sails and huge waves smashed a daggerboard of his New Zealand-built monster catamaran PlayStation, forcing him to abandon a bid to race around the world.

In his latest attempt to challenge nature, Fossett was taking a nap before embarking on a 15-day flight in a cramped canary-yellow capsule when disaster struck.

His crew was pumping hot air and helium into the eight-tonne balloon, named Solo Spirit, when it was caught in a sudden gust.

"It just pulled it forward, the capsule collapsed on its side ... and the balloon tore in several places," said Solo Spirit spokesman Keith Jenkins. "It's crushing, really."

With no spare balloon, the project was cancelled. Mr Fossett estimated it would take six months to repair the balloon, and he could not see a relaunch before next year, when conditions would be favourable again.

But Mr Fossett is not a man who will be beaten.

He is a serial adventurer - swimming the English Channel, driving dogsleds across Alaska, sailing single-handed across the Atlantic, and climbing the highest mountains in six of the seven continents.

Married without children, he made his fortune in the American financial markets - his claim to fame trading in soya beans.

He has succeeded in flying around the world in a fixed-wing aircraft, setting a record of 41 hours, 13 minutes in February last year.

But his long-term passion has been to balloon around the globe on his own.

At his second try, in 1997, he ran out of fuel after six days in the air and landed in a mustard field in a remote part of India. But he had travelled further than any man in a balloon - more than 16,000km.

A year later, he crashed in a Russian wheatfield because of a malfunctioning in-cabin heater and a failed propane burner.

In his fourth attempt, Mr Fossett managed to get two-thirds of the way around the globe, until he ran into a thunderstorm off Australia. Winds ruptured the balloon and he plummeted 9000m into the Coral Sea.

"I thought it was going to kill me," he said after being rescued.

A few months later, he linked up with Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand to try to become the first team to circumnavigate the globe, but they ditched in the sea off Hawaii.

Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard and Englishman Brian Jones then beat them all to the punch.

Mr Fossett has refused to let go of his dream, but yesterday's mishap brought him a little closer to throwing in the towel.

"This is very disappointing, but we all have a lot of disappointments in our personal lives. Some of my disappointments are a little more conspicuous than other people's."