In his final moments before dying in a hot air balloon crash in Arizona, Chayton Wiescholek had the chance to send one last text to his girlfriend.
In the heartbreaking message, the 28-year-old wrote: “Goodbye, this isn’t going to be good, I love you.”
Wiescholek, of Michigan, died last week along with three others when the balloon he was in crashed in a rural area of Arizona about five miles north of the town of Eloy.
His girlfriend, Kinsey Taylor, had jumped from the balloon minutes earlier for a planned skydive before there were any signs of trouble.
She didn’t see his text until she landed safely. She immediately called him, but someone else answered and told her, “This isn’t good, you need to be here now.”
Chayton Wiescholek and Kinsey Taylor were in the doomed hot air balloon in Arizona. Kinsey Taylor had bailed out of the balloon minutes earlier for a planned skydive before there were any signs of trouble. Wiescholek was not so lucky and texted her before he died
In the heartbreaking message, the 28-year-old wrote: “Goodbye, this isn’t going to be good, I love you.”
Kinsey had safely ejected from the balloon as part of a skydive moments before the balloon crashed and killed Chayton. Wiescholek reportedly told his parents that he was planning to propose
She removed her harness and ran two miles to reach him, but when she reached the crash site, “officials wouldn’t let her near him.”
The couple was vacationing from their home in Michigan, where they lived with their cats.
Wiescholek’s mother, Rhonda, told Fox 17, “She looked at her phone and got a message from my son. It said: ‘I love you.’ He knew he was going to die.”
She told Arizona’s family, “He was just in the balloon to be with her and all the skydivers had jumped out of the balloon and then something went wrong and we still don’t know what.”
On a GoFundMe page, the family said they want to “continue to remember Chayton as the life of the party, the adventurer and the solid voice of reason.”
Valerie Stutterheim, a 23-year-old Scottsdale resident, is the only surviving passenger from the crash. She remains in critical condition at a local hospital.
Images show the immediate aftermath as a massive fire broke out at the crash site, sending a plume of dark smoke billowing into the air.
Aerial footage showed firefighters arriving to extinguish the blaze, washing away the blackened earth beneath their boots.
According to Mayor Micah Powell, there were 13 people on board – eight paratroopers, four passengers and a pilot.
Images show a wall of flames at the site of the Arizona hot air balloon crash that killed four people and left another person in critical condition at a local hospital
Aerial footage shows firefighters arriving to battle the blaze, leaving the ground completely charred
The balloon fell from the sky around 8 a.m. Sunday after an “unspecified problem” with the envelope, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The eight paratroopers jumped from the plane before the incident, leaving five people in the gondola.
Eloy Police Chief Byron Gwaltney said they were “able to exit the balloon without incident” to complete a “planned skydiving” event shortly before the balloon went down.
He said the paratroopers planned to land at Eloy Municipal Airport, near the accident site.
“The incident seemed to happen very quickly,” Gwaltney said. “It’s just an absolute tragedy for our community and for the people we work with today.”
Preliminary information from the National Transportation Safety Board indicates that the balloon crashed after an “unspecified problem” with the envelope.
The first victim was named Kaitlynn “Katie” Bartrom, 28, a registered nurse from Indiana.
Bartrom worked at Fort Wayne Lutheran Hospital on the Advanced Cardiac Therapy floor and had recently graduated from nursing school.
Atahan Kiliccote, 24, and Cornelius Van Der Walt, 37, also died in the crash.
The first victim was identified as 28-year-old Kaitlynn “Katie” Bartrom, a registered nurse from Indiana
Cornelius van der Walt, 37, was piloting the balloon before the tragic crash. He was from South Africa and lived in the town of Eloy, about eight kilometers from the scene of the incident
Atahan Kiliccote, 24, will graduate from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering in 2022
Chayton Wiescholek, 28, was on the plane with his girlfriend Kinsey. She was one of eight skydivers who jumped shortly before the crash
Van der Walt was identified as the pilot. The 37-year-old was from South Africa but lived in Eloy.
“I’m so sorry the public will probably remind you of this one flight,” friend Phil Brandt wrote on Facebook.
“Just know that so many others, including myself, know that you were a wonderfully good man and a great pilot.”
Kiliccote, from Cupertino, California, attended Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering and will graduate in 2022.