"According to the pilot, who is one of the survivors, a fire started inside the basket, so he started to lower the balloon, and when the balloon was very close to the ground he told people to jump," officer Tiago Luiz Lemos, from the Praia Grande police station, told reporters at the scene. "They started to jump, but some people did not manage to. The flames started to grow and because of the weight, the balloon began to rise again. "It later fell because of a loss of suspension."