UNFORGIVEN TRESPASS

By Kevin Fedarko

THE GORDON BENNETT BALLOON RACE is one of the most prestigious contests of its kind and is based on a single rule: the balloon that travels the farthest wins. Following that canon has led many daring pilots over the years to risk their lives, and sometimes to lose them. Tragedy, when it occurs, usually boils down to collision with one of three things: bad weather, bad judgment or bad luck. In 1923 five balloonists were struck by lightning and killed in Europe. But during the 89-year history of this race, no balloon had ever fallen victim to deliberate human aggression.

Not, that is, until last week. At 9:41 on Tuesday morning, a Belarussian helicopter gunship opened fire on a balloon captained by Alan Fraenckel, 55, an airline pilot with TWA, and his partner, John Stuart-Jervis, 68, a retired British pilot who made his home in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Within seconds they were dead--shot out of the sky over a remote Belarussian forest.

The episode was reminiscent on a smaller scale of the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which took place 12 years ago this month. But if the spirit of last week's attack seemed lifted from the cold war, its causes were rooted in what came after: the confusion, chaos and, all too often, the incompetence that have plagued the republics of the old Soviet Union since its collapse in 1991. None of those factors, however, seemed to justify Belarus' reaction to intrusion of its airspace--or placate survivors of the two innocent men who were killed.

Their balloon, the D-Caribbean, set out with 14 competitors from seven countries on Sept. 9 from Switzerland, the home of the previous year's winner. Because this would be the first Gordon Bennett race since the end of World War II in which former Soviet airspace would be accessible, organizers had contacted each of the Baltic States as well as Belarus and Ukraine to request permission for the balloons to cross their airspace. Pilots, after all, could not fully control where the winds took them. Having received approval from every government, including Belarus', the balloons ascended from Wil, near the Swiss city of St. Gallen, at 7:45 a.m. Over the next 60 hours, Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis, together with two other balloons also piloted by Americans, drifted north toward Dresden, passed through Germany and eventually entered Poland. By 9:30 a.m. last Tuesday, they were poised to cross the Polish-Belarussian border.

All three balloons radioed their crossing to Minsk, but according to Andreas Spenger, the race's chief organizer, they merely received a stream of Russian in reply, even though English is the accepted language in international aviation. "They took that for acknowledgment, though," said Spenger, "because all knew that Minsk had been duly informed in advance." As the morning progressed, Spenger continued to monitor the balloons' eastward drift, reporting their positions every half hour to Minsk.

Belarus claims that information never reached officials at the military base, 100 miles southwest of Minsk, where a blip produced by Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis' balloon suddenly appeared on radar screens, dangerously close to one of several strategic missile bases that dot the area. Belarussian officials sent two Mi-24 helicopter gunships into the air to investigate. One of the choppers found the balloon, approached within 110 yards and attempted, without success, to establish radio contact. (Race organizers suspect that the pilots were unable to respond because their batteries had gone dead during the three-day flight.)

At roughly the same time, the two other balloons over Belarus were confronted in similar fashion; the pilots quickly unfurled flags and were permitted to land. More than 25 minutes of circling Fraenckel and Stuart-Jervis' craft, however, brought no reply from inside the gondola, which was covered with thick canvas. After firing warning shots, the helicopter pilot became convinced that the craft was unmanned. Ordered to bring it down, the chopper fired about 20 bullets, enough to send the balloon and its gondola plunging to the forest below. Belarussian officials then kept silent for 24 hours while they sifted the wreckage and identified the mangled bodies.

Three days after the attack, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko had yet to make a public apology, which prompted Nicolas Burns, a U.S. State Department spokesman, to denounce Belarus' behavior as "outrageous" and "absolutely indefensible." Lukashenko eventually ordered an investigation of the episode and by week's end had invited American officials to participate. That may eventually shed light on who is responsible. But what cannot be explained, or fathomed, is how anyone can shoot down something as harmless as a helium balloon. "This is so senseless," said Ruth Ludwig of the Balloon Federation of America. "It's the most benign thing people can do, floating around in the sky."

--Reported by Robert Kroon/Geneva and Constance Richards/Minsk

With reporting by ROBERT KROON/GENEVA AND CONSTANCE RICHARDS/MINSK