On January 14, 2024 in Eloy Arizona a group of 13 people, a balloon operator, four passengers, and eight skydivers, were on a hot air balloon getting ready to perform the jump. Shortly after the eight skydivers completed their planned jump from the hot air balloon a devastating incident occurred. The balloon started to fall and make its way to the ground and crashed, killing three out of the four passengers and the pilot, while critically injuring one other passenger. Upon early investigation the crash was deemed an accident. But on April 5th 2024, a revised autopsy report of the pilot came out stating he had high levels of ketamine in his system.

According to Eric Levenson and Cindy von Quendnow at CNN, “ Van der Walt had ketamine levels of between 1.1 to 1.2 mg/L in his system, according to toxicology testing from the FAA and from NMS Labs. For comparison, the United Kingdom considers ketamine levels over .02 mg/L to be indicative of impaired driving ability, the report says” (April 8th).

The report ultimately determined the cause of death was an accident due to multiple blunt force trauma.

According to Eric Levenson and Cindy von Quendnow at CNN, “ Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects and makes users feel detached and disconnected from their pain and environment, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug has also proven to be helpful for treating depression and trauma, and a derivative of the drug called esketamine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019 for some patients with depression” (April 8th).

The other 3 lives that were claimed in the crash were Chayton Wiescholek, 28, Kaitlynn Bartrom, 28, and Atahan Kiliccote, 24.