3 Hot Air Balloons in Wyoming Crash Into Ground

For 45 minutes, Clinton Phillips and his family soared in a hot-air balloon Monday morning, high above Jackson Hole, a bucolic mountain valley in Wyoming that is popular with tourists.

“This is the greatest thing we’ve ever done as a family,” he recalled thinking. Then, a strong gust of wind threw Mr. Phillips’s balloon out of control. “I looked past my wife and I just screamed, ‘Brace for impact!’” he said.

After that impact, when they rolled out of the balloon, Mr. Phillips said everyone in his family was limping; his son thought he’d had a concussion, and his wife’s ribs were broken.

The balloon carrying Mr. Philips and 20 others was one of three hot air balloons owned by the same company to crash on Monday morning about the same time, officials said.