Eloy hot air balloon crash: Police identify victims, skydivers

ELOY, Ariz. - The Eloy Police Department has identified the four people who died as a result of a crash involving a hot air balloon.

The crash happened near Sunshine Boulevard and Hanna Road at around 7:50 a.m. on Jan. 14. According to information released by police at the time, there were eight skydivers in the balloon who jumped before the incident. Five people remained in the balloon – a pilot and four who were along for the ride.

"Skydivers were able to exit the balloon without incident and complete their skydiving incident and that's when something catastrophic happened and the balloon crashed to the ground," police said.

On Jan. 15, Eloy Police identified the four people as:

Kaitlynn Bartrom, 28, of Andrews, Indiana
Atahan Kiliccote, 24, of Cupertino, California
Cornelius Van Der Walt, 37, originally from Walvis Bay, Namibia, but resides in Eloy
Chayton Wiescholek, 28, of Union City, Michigan

Van Der Walt, according to police, is identified as the pilot.

Police also say another person, identified as 23-year-old Valerie Stutterheim of Scottsdale, is listed in critical condition.

The eight skydivers are identified as:

Dante Leon, 34, of Watertown, Massachusetts
Evan Baer, 36, of Mansfield, Texas
Stephen Landberg, 67, of Clayton, Michigan
Duran Shipley, 72, of Hudson, Indiana
Kinsey Taylor, 28, of Union City, Michigan
Braxton Mueller, 34, of Venedocia, Ohio
Jeffery Martin, 27, of Goshen, Indiana
William Wentz, 45, of Berne, Indiana

"At this time, the Eloy Police Department is actively collaborating with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the investigation of this incident," read a portion of the statement.

Victims of deadly Eloy hot air balloon crash identified

'Like losing a member of the family’

A ballooning pilot for 40 years, Bob Romaneschi, says questions will likely take a while to answer.

"Learning as much as they can about the pilot. Learning as much as they can about the passengers. Learning as much as they can about what happened during the flight, before," he said.

Romaneschi speaks about the pilot, Van Der Walt.

"From what I knew, Cornelius was a skydiver first, and that was his social community, so he didn’t spend a lot of time with balloonists. I think he became a balloonist to facilitate his desire to have skydivers experience jumping from a balloon. And from what I did know, he was serious about skydiving, and he was also serious about ballooning," Romaneschi said.

He urges everyone not to speculate about the crash until more is known.

In the meantime, he and several pilots are mourning the loss of life.

"It’s just like losing a member of the family. You don’t have to know a balloon pilot to kind of absorb the emotion from the event," he said.

Close family friends of Chayton Wiescholek, one of the victims, remembered him.

A loved one says Wiescholek grew up in a rural farming community, was a hard worker, loved to country line dance, ride jeeps and was known as an upstanding, upright young man.