A HOT air balloon crash-landed in a farmer's field, throwing a passenger out of the basket.

The man, in his 50s, was travelling with two other men when it hit the ground at Scarfoot Farm, Crawshawbooth.

The balloon had travelled from Walkden in Manchester.

Roger Skillings, owner of the beef and sheep farm, was driving his daughter Rebecca, 20, to work when he saw the large blue balloon flying low above his land at 9.30am on Saturday.

He said: “I said to Rebecca, ‘that balloon’s going to crash’. It was flying really, really low and descending fast.

“When I got back, my younger daughter Katie said she had seen it fall out of the sky and into the field.”

Katie, 16, who has just finished her GCSEs at Alder Grange School in Rawtenstall, said: “It hit the ground, bounced and threw one of the men out of the basket.

“He flew a fair few feet into the air and then slammed back down again. I thought he could’ve really hurt himself.

“We wanted to see if he was all right and if they needed any help.”

Mr Skillings and Katie ran about 200 yards from the farmhouse to where it had landed.

They asked if the man who had been thrown was injured, but he was unharmed.

The men were unsure where they were and asked Mr Skillings for his postcode so a friend could come to pick them and the balloon up.

Within five minutes, an air ambulance arrived, believed to have been called by a concerned neighbour who witnessed the landing, but it was not needed.

Roy Battersby, pilot and owner of the balloon, said: “We set off at 7.30am and were carried by the wind. We meant to land where we landed.

“People tend to be quite welcoming when we land in their fields. They see it as exciting and out of the ordinary.”