Worthington resident, 94, wakes up to blimp that landed in yard

Lil­lian Bern­hagen talks about being shocked that a blimp broke free of its moor­ings at an air­port and landed in her back­yard on Sun­day in Wor­thing­ton. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Kan­tele Franko)

KANTELE FRANKO

Asso­ci­ated Press

WORTHINGTON — A 94-year-old Ohio woman who woke up to dis­cover that a break­away blimp from a nearby air­port had landed in her back­yard said she heard a bang dur­ing stormy weather but didn’t real­ize what hap­pened until police knocked on her door about seven hours later.

The 128-foot-long blimp broke free of its moor­ings at a Colum­bus air­port dur­ing strong winds early Sun­day, then drifted to the sky, headed east­ward and landed in Lil­lian Bernhagen’s back­yard in Wor­thing­ton, less than two miles from Ohio State University’s Don Scott air­field. No one was aboard and no injuries were reported.

The rem­nants of a bat­tered blimp were draped over Bernhagen’s pic­nic table and bird­feed­ers, cov­er­ing half her backyard.

“I looked out the win­dow and I said, ‘Wow!’” she said.

Storms had lim­ited the options author­i­ties had to find the blimp until it was spot­ted in Bernhagen’s yard. The Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion tried to locate it via radar, while its own­ers tried to see it from the ground, said state police spokesman Lt. Rudy Zupanc.

As crews dis­man­tled and inspected the blimp Sun­day morn­ing, Bern­hagen snapped pho­tos to share with rel­a­tives and talked about the sur­prise that forced her to miss her church service.

“It really is quite an occa­sion to have a blimp land in your yard,” she said.

Bern­hagen said it appeared the blimp, which was removed by mid-afternoon, had top­pled a small tree and slightly bent a cor­ner awning along her roof but didn’t do any major dam­age to her home.

“I didn’t expect to see one on the ground,” she said. “I’ve only ever seen one in the air.”

The blimp adver­tises Hangar 1 Vodka and is on a tour of about 20 cities under the direc­tion of an Orlando, Fla.-based air­ship adver­tiser called The Light­ship Group, said Toby Page, the group’s mar­ket­ing direc­tor. The blimp won’t make its next planned stop in Detroit on Thursday.

“TLG will inves­ti­gate what hap­pened, but at this time there’s noth­ing to indi­cate that it was any­thing more than a freak thun­der­storm,” Page said Sun­day after­noon, not­ing he had no con­cerns about how the blimp was teth­ered at the airport.

Asked whether she might try the vodka, Bern­hagen joked that she might need a drink after such a ruckus.

Posted by AP News on Aug 14 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.