Balloon pilot in downtown Santa Rosa landing was faulted in 2016 landing that injured boy

The pilot who landed his hot air balloon with two tourists aboard in a downtown Santa Rosa parking lot said Friday he safely executed a “precision landing” that did no damage and avoided a worse outcome.

William Howard Sowers, a Santa Rosa resident, said his landing Thursday morning in the small lot in front of the Sears Auto Center at Santa Rosa Plaza was “a precautionary landing to preclude an emergency.”

Sowers, 69, who declined to be interviewed on Thursday, disputed The Press Democrat’s description of an “emergency landing” in Friday’s newspaper.

In a terse telephone interview, Sowers said his balloon was “on a trajectory” that would have carried his aircraft, with a couple from Tennessee on board, across the city “and risk hitting power lines.”

Ballooning, like any form of aviation, “has some inherent dangers,” said Sowers, who said he has more than 30 years experience with balloons.

“When you take off in a balloon you get dealt a hand and you gotta play the hand,” he said.

Sowers was faulted by the National Transportation Safety Board following a rough landing in a Petaluma-area field on Feb. 13, 2016, in which a child passenger was seriously hurt, according to an NTSB report.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the latest incident, an agency spokesman said in an email Friday. The agency attempts to speak with pilots in all investigations, but Ian Gregor, the spokesman, said he did not know if Sowers had been contacted.

There is no timeframe for completing investigations, he said.

Gregor said the FAA has no record of accidents or incidents involving Sowers, noting that such records are expunged from a pilot’s record after five years.

The FAA suspended Sowers’ commercial pilot certificate for 75 days for violations that occurred on May 17, 2013, Gregor said. Sowers was penalized for failing to have a valid airworthiness certificate and registration certificate aboard his balloon, Gregor said.

In the rough Petaluma landing last year, Sowers admitted to an NTSB investigator that he “misjudged the wind” during his approach to the field. The balloon basket struck a metal pipe fence, the report said.

The child, who was sitting down in the basket, sustained serious injuries, and the balloon landed safely on a road, the report said.

The NTSB could not be reached for comment Friday.

A news report at the time by CBS13 television in Tracy quoted a passenger, Michael Franks, as saying the impact threw passengers to the front of the basket and on top of a 6-year-old boy, who sustained a broken collarbone and a punctured lung.

Chuck Arreola, owner of the company that hired Sowers for that flight, said the pilot did nothing wrong that day.

“No, not in my estimation,” said Arreola, who operates A Balloon Over Sonoma and goes by the name Captain Chuck. The balloon basket landed upright, he said.

Sowers is a “very knowledgeable” pilot with thousands of hours of experience, and Arreola said he still contracts with Sowers to take large groups up in the air.

Arreola also vouched for Sowers’ actions on Thursday, saying he made a “pinpoint landing” in the parking lot, using the adjacent three-story parking garage to cut off wind and allow the balloon to come straight down into a “tight space.”

Police linked the balloon involved in Thursday’s landing to a company called Ad Astra Productions, which appears to be based in Fresno, according to state business registry. No other representative of the company could be reached Friday.

Sowers was probably heading southeast toward Rohnert Park when the wind shifted and carried him into Santa Rosa, Arreola said.

“When you get to Santa Rosa there’s not many places to land,” Arreola said.

The balloon landed about 100 yards east of Highway 101.