In his last moments before he died in a hot air balloon crash in Arizona, Chayton Wiescholek had the chance to send one final 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, from Michigan, died along with three others when the balloon he was in crashed in a rural area of Arizona around five miles north of the city of Eloy last week.
His girlfriend, Kinsey Taylor, had jumped out of the balloon for a planned skydive minutes earlier before any signs of trouble.
She didn’t see his text until she landed safely. She immediately called him but someone else answered the phone and told her: ‘This is not good, you need to be here now.’
Chayton Wiescholek and Kinsey Taylor were on the doomed hot air balloon in Arizona. Kinsey Taylor, had jumped out of the balloon for a planned skydive minutes earlier before any signs of trouble. Wiescholek wasn’t as lucky and sent a text message to 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 jumped from the balloon as part of skydive just moments before the balloon crashed and killed Chayton. Wiescholek had reportedly told his parents he planned 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 pair were on vacation from their Michigan home, where they lived with their cats.
Wiescholek’s mother, Rhonda, told Fox 17: ‘She looked at her phone and had 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 up 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 adventure seeker, and solid voice of reason.’
Valerie Stutterheim, a 23-year-old Scottsdale native, is the only surviving passenger of the crash. She remains in critical condition at a local hospital.
Footage shows the immediate aftermath as a huge blaze ignited at the crash site, leaving a plume of dark smoke trailing into the sky.
Aerial footage showed firefighters arriving to snuff out the blaze, hosing down the blackened earth beneath their boots.
Thirteen people – eight skydivers, four passengers and a pilot – were on board, according to Mayor Micah Powell.
Footage shows a wall of flames at the site of the Arizona hot air balloon crash that killed four and left another person in critical condition at a local hospital
Aerial video shows firefighters arriving to battle the blaze, which left the ground completely charred
The balloon fell out of the air around 8am Sunday following an ‘unspecified problem’ with its envelope, the National Transportation Safety Board said
The eight skydivers leaped from the aircraft 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 skydivers intended to land at the Eloy Municipal Airport, just down the road from the scene of the accident.
‘The incident appeared to occur very quickly,’ Gwaltney said. ‘It’s just an absolute tragedy for our community and for the people that we’re working with today.’
Preliminary information from the National Transportation Safety Board shows the balloon crashed following an ‘unspecified problem’ with its envelope.
The first victim was named as Kaitlynn ‘Katie’ Bartrom, 28, a registered nurse from Indiana.
Bartrom worked at the 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, were also killed 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 hailed from South Africa and resided in the city of Eloy, roughly five miles from the scene of the incident
Atahan Kiliccote, 24, graduated from Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering in 2022
Chayton Wiescholek, 28, was on the aircraft with his girlfriend, Kinsey. She was one of the eight skydivers who jumped shortly before the crash
Van der Walt was identified as the pilot. The 37-year-old hailed from South Africa but resided in Eloy.
‘I’m so sorry that this one flight will likely be what the public will remember you for,’ friend Phil Brandt wrote on Facebook.
‘Just know that so many others, including myself, know that you were one hell of a good man and a superb pilot.’
Kiliccote, of Cupertino, California, attended Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering and graduated in 2022.