Public record · updated
Teotihuacan balloon accidents: every one on record, with its source
Five, between April 2023 and April 2026. One with two deaths, three with injuries and one with nobody hurt. Below is one row per event with the reported cause, the casualties and a link to the outlet that published it — and, beside it, what was done afterwards, case by case. Plus a pattern that falls straight out of the record: four of the five happened on descent, on landing, or through running out of fuel. No company names, and no event we cannot link to a source.
Public record · sources linked
- What is it?
- The public record of balloon accidents over Teotihuacan: five events between 2023 and 2026, one row each with the outlet that reported it, and beside each one what was done afterwards — including the two enforcement sweeps that temporarily suspended nine companies in May 2025 and three in March 2026.
- Who is it for?
- Travellers who searched for the accidents before booking and want the sourced version instead of the rumour.
- What does it cost to check?
- Nothing. The documents a legal operator holds are free to ask for. The flight itself starts at $2,100 MXN (about US$115) per person, charged in Mexican pesos; dollar figures on this page are converted at 18.3 MXN/USD, August 2026.
- How do you protect yourself?
-
- Read all five rows and open the sources for yourself.
- Ask any operator for the AFAC authorisation and the pilot's commercial licence before paying.
- Type the balloon's registration into the public aircraft register. It is free and it does not need them.
- If they will not put it in writing, book elsewhere.
Direct answer
Yes. Five hot air balloon accidents over the Teotihuacan valley are documented between April 2023 and April 2026, every one of them covered by national outlets. They are listed below with date, reported cause, casualties and a link to the outlet that published it.
Before the list, the thing the list is actually telling you. Four of the five happened in the last part of the flight — on the descent, on the landing, or because the balloon ran out of fuel. Not one of the five was caused by the weather. The one that does not fit is 2023, and that one was paperwork and equipment: a balloon flying on a foreign registration with no Mexican one, and a pilot on an expired licence. So the honest answer to “is it safe to fly a balloon at Teotihuacan?” is that it is not risk-free, that it is commercial aviation supervised by AFAC, and that the variable you can actually move is not the wind. It is which company takes your card.
And the half of the story most lists stop before: what was done after each one. Twice the authorities came to this valley within a fortnight of an accident and sealed operations — nine companies temporarily suspended on 28 May 2025, five days after the envelope tear, and three more on 29 March 2026, thirteen days after the power-line strike. Every case below carries its own consequence, or says plainly that we found none.
Five events, one row each
Only what a tier-one outlet published. Every figure links to its source. We do not repeat numbers we cannot source, and we do not publish the names of the companies or the pilots involved.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone. Last checked August 2026.
| Date | Place | Reported cause | Casualties reported | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 April 2023 | Teotihuacan valley, State of Mexico | Fire in the basket during a sightseeing flight | Two people died and a girl was injured, with burns and a fractured humerus. N+ reports two injured rather than one | CNN en Español · CBS News |
| 14 January 2025 | Otumba, next to the Teotihuacan valley | Forced landing; the basket tipped over | Two foreign tourists injured: a 34-year-old German woman with contusions and a 40-year-old American man with a fractured fifth cervical vertebra | Proceso |
| 23 May 2025 | San Martín de las Pirámides, over Avenida Tuxpan | The envelope tore over the archaeological zone and the pilot lost control | At least 12 injured with bruises and grazes, none hospitalised, among them Mexican and foreign travellers. The State of Mexico prosecutor opened an injuries case. The count is disputed: 12, 13 or 14 depending on the outlet | El Financiero · El Valle |
| 16 March 2026 | San Lorenzo Tlamimilolpan; came down in San Juan Teotihuacán | Touched power lines during the descent and the pilot lost control | Two British tourists aged 43 and 49 with electrical burns, injuries not life-threatening, taken to a private hospital in Mexico City. AFAC opened an administrative investigation | El Financiero · Proceso |
| 21 April 2026 | A few metres from the Pyramid of the Sun, near the Avenue of the Dead | Ran out of fuel and made a forced landing | Nobody was hurt. Staff from the Felipe Ángeles International Airport post attended and AFAC opened an administrative investigation | El Financiero |
And what was done afterwards, case by case
Same five dates, same order, one row each. A record that stops at the crash tells you half the story; the half that tells you whether the system reacts is this one. Where we found no consequence, the row says so instead of being left out.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone.
| The event | What was done afterwards | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 April 2023 | The pilot was arrested days later and a company employee was separately charged; the accident got a 184-page final report; and the country wrote the first balloon-specific rule it had ever had. Then the case ended: on 20 December 2024 all four defendants walked free under a reparation agreement and nobody was sentenced to prison | Arrest April 2023 · rule 14 May 2024 · case closed 20 December 2024 | El Financiero · La Silla Rota · Telediario |
| 14 January 2025 | None that we could document. No inspection sweep, no suspension, no criminal case reported by any outlet we could find for this event. We are publishing the gap rather than quietly dropping the row, because the gap is also information | — | No published follow-up found |
| 23 May 2025 | Five days later, at 7:00 in the morning of 28 May 2025, AFAC and State of Mexico authorities inspected around 20 balloon launch sites across the valley and temporarily suspended nine companies, placing seals on them. The reported reason: several sites held no civil protection assessment issued by the state government. The suspensions were temporary and could be extended if the findings were not corrected | 28 May 2025 | El Universal · Milenio · SDP Noticias |
| 16 March 2026 | AFAC opened an administrative investigation. Thirteen days later, on 29 March 2026, a verification visit to the valley's launch sites: 46 balloons in service inspected, 23 of them with irregularities, and three companies temporarily suspended and sealed pending corrections | 29 March 2026 | TV Azteca · Infobae · adn40 |
| 21 April 2026 | AFAC opened an administrative investigation and staff from the Felipe Angeles airport post attended the scene. We do not know what it concluded: we found nothing published since, and we are not going to guess at the ending of an open file | Opened 21 April 2026, outcome unpublished | El Financiero |
Read the two tables together and a second pattern appears
The system does react, and it reacts fast when somebody is hurt in public: twice, an accident with injured tourists was followed within a fortnight by a sweep that sealed companies — nine in May 2025, three in March 2026. It also reacts unevenly: of the five events, one produced a new national rule, two produced suspensions, one produced a criminal case that ended with nobody in prison, and one produced nothing we can find at all.
And no, we are not adding nine and three into twelve. They are two separate sweeps ten months apart, and since we do not publish company names we cannot tell you whether any company appears on both lists. What we can tell you is which way round they go: the larger number is the older one. Anyone quoting “three suspended” as the historical total is quoting the most recent sweep and the smallest one.
The pattern is in the table itself, with nothing extrapolated
Four of the five happened on the descent, on landing, or through running out of fuel — the final phase of the flight. The one that does not fit is 2023, and that one came down to the equipment and the paperwork. On fuel, the balloon circular is explicit: the pilot in command may only begin a flight if the fuel and ballast on board are sufficient to complete the intended flight safely, and must check the reserve at regular intervals during the flight (clauses 13.14.1 and 13.14.2, CO AV-91.03/24 R1).
The second thing the table says out loud: the weather caused none of the five. Every page in this business talks about wind, and wind is not what is in this record. What the weather does decide is whether a given morning flies at all, and our line there is a number rather than a feeling: above 10 km/h (about 6 mph) of surface wind, read on the field at first light, nobody inflates. That is a question of the calendar rather than of risk, and it has twelve different answers in the month-by-month record of dawn wind, rain and temperature here.
And the power lines of March 2026 are not a freak event. US data The Congressional Research Service counted 45 fatal balloon accidents in the United States between 1982 and 2015 and reported that more than half involved collisions with power lines (CRS Insight IN10543). Different country, different regulator — but it is the most documented failure mode in the activity worldwide, and it happens where a balloon comes down.
One case you will see mixed in with these, and it is not from here
On 12 May 2025 a person died in a balloon accident during the first balloon festival of the Enrique Estrada fair, in the state of Zacatecas: the basket caught fire close to the ground, the balloon went out of control and began to climb, and someone who grabbed a rope to escape the flames fell from height. Two more people were hurt, and prosecutors opened a case for negligent homicide, injuries and abandonment (CNN en Español). It was a festival in Zacatecas, not a tourist flight at Teotihuacan, about 600 km away. We list it because it shows up in the same searches, and confusing the two is exactly the mistake this record exists to prevent.
Five accidents over how many flights? We do not have that number, and nor does anyone else
It is the first thing you should ask of any list of accidents, including this one. A numerator without a denominator is a scare, not a statistic. So here is exactly where the denominator is missing: AFAC's own open-data portal publishes no accident statistics, and there is no public, consultable register of authorised balloon operators (checked here), and we found no Mexican accident rate per flight hour or per operation from any authority.
The only sourced magnitudes of this valley we can give you are the ones the press counted on the two mornings it was there: around 20 balloon launch sites inspected in May 2025, and 46 balloons in service counted in March 2026. We are not going to multiply either by mornings to manufacture a denominator. It would read as authority and it would be invented, and this page exists because of numbers that were invented somewhere else first.
So read the five as what they are. Five documented events. Four of them in the same phase of flight. And one root cause that runs through the reporting of all of them: not the sky, the seller.
Found a sixth event we have not listed? Send us the outlet that published it and we will add the row. We would rather carry an uncomfortable line than an incomplete record.
Nine companies, then three
Neither number comes from an accident. Both come from an inspection, and both landed within a fortnight of one. The second sweep also counted the balloons, and that count is the hardest number in the file.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone.
| The sweep | What they inspected and found | What they did | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 May 2025, from 7:00 a.m. Five days after the envelope tear | AFAC together with State of Mexico authorities inspected around 20 balloon launch sites across the valley. The motive reported by the outlets: several establishments held no civil protection assessment issued by the state government | Nine companies temporarily suspended, with seals placed on them. Temporary, and extendable if the findings were not corrected | El Universal · Milenio · SDP Noticias |
| 29 March 2026 Thirteen days after the power-line strike | AFAC with State of Mexico authorities, the state administrative verification institute, municipal and state civil protection and the public security ministry. Quoted in full by TV Azteca: “a total of 46 balloons in service were inspected, 23 of them with irregularities” | Three companies temporarily suspended and sealed while the findings were corrected | TV Azteca · Infobae · adn40 |
Neither list of names appears on this page, in either sweep, although both are public. That is the same rule we apply to the accidents themselves, and it is the reason we will not tell you that nine plus three is twelve: two sweeps ten months apart, no names in front of us, no way to know whether a company was sealed in both. Two figures, two dates, no arithmetic.
Two more things have to be said about the 2026 figure or it is not honest. First: Infobae words the same number differently, and the difference changes the headline; it is set out in the discrepancies table. Second: the quoted sentence is TV Azteca’s, not an AFAC bulletin we were able to download, which is why we attribute it by name rather than presenting it as an official figure.
And note what the two motives have in common. The 2025 suspensions were reported over a civil protection assessment for the field; the 2026 ones over irregularities found on the balloons in service. Neither was about the weather, and neither was about the activity. Both were about paperwork somebody had not kept current.
What the two numbers mean for you, in one line: dozens of balloons fly over this valley every morning, the authorities have twice found that compliance is not uniform, and both times the fix was a document that was missing. That turns “who am I flying with?” into the only question that actually moves the needle.
What the 2023 investigation found
Six findings. Not one of them is about the wind. They are all about paperwork, equipment and oversight — which is why this case changed the country’s rules.
The 1 April 2023 accident has a 184-page final report from Mexico’s aviation accident and incident analysis directorate. We could not download that document. Everything below is reported by El Financiero, which says it consulted the report. We say that before the list, not after it.
- The balloon carried a Slovenian registration and had no Mexican registration, no entry in the aeronautical registry and no AFAC authorisation to fly in the country.
- Its entry through a Mexican customs post was, in the report’s words, “inexplicable and unrecorded”.
- The pilot was operating on an expired licence and had been flying for more than six years without the required permits.
- Of three fuel tanks, only one was certified for aviation use; the other two were not certified for balloons.
- The envelope had “repairs with fabrics and stitching outside the manufacturer’s manual”.
- AFAC “had no specific regulation for hot air balloons, nor did it carry out specific periodic oversight”.
And there had been a warning. The Teotihuacan balloon operators’ federation had reported to AFAC headquarters months earlier that independent operators were flying without permits or safe conditions (Infobae).
The consequence: Mexico wrote a rule that did not exist
The first mandatory circular written specifically for crewed balloons in Mexico was issued on 14 May 2024, more than a year after that 1 April. What is in force today is its revision, CO AV-91.03/24 R1, dated 8 September 2025, which cancelled the first. What it now requires — technical requirements certificate, permit, commercial pilot licence, approved maintenance programme, radio on board, safety briefing — is broken down clause by clause on the balloon safety guide and operator check. It is worth holding that against the findings above: nearly every one of them would today be a breach with a name and a clause number. This register is also part of our open dataset for the valley, which journalists may quote and republish with attribution.
Finding by finding, against the rule that exists now
This is the table nobody publishes, and it is the whole argument of this page in one screen. Left column: what the 2023 investigation found, as reported by El Financiero. Middle: the clause in force today that covers it. Right: the question that clause hands you, free of charge.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone.
| The 2023 finding | The rule in force today | What you can ask for because of it |
|---|---|---|
| Flying on a Slovenian registration, no Mexican one | Mexican commercial balloons are registered XB- (art. 44, Civil Aviation Act), and the registration and the national flag must be displayed clearly and visibly on the balloon (clause 10.2 CO) | Read the registration painted on the envelope. In the public aircraft registry, all 256 balloons carry the XB- prefix — without exception |
| No AFAC authorisation to operate in the country | Two papers, in this order. First a Technical Requirements Certificate, CRT (clause 11.1.1); then the permit (11.2.1). “For the permit to be granted, a CRT must be held beforehand” (clause 11.2.2) | Ask for both, in that order. An operator who shows you a permit but does not know what a CRT is has shown you a paper that could not exist |
| Pilot on an expired licence, six years without permits | Commercial balloon pilot licence, not private (clause 18.1.3); valid for three years (art. 38 Civil Aviation Act); plus annual recurrent training at an AFAC-authorised school (clause 13.6.6) | Ask for the class and the number, and check the word commercial is on it. This is the point the 2023 press coverage got wrong — see the discrepancies table |
| Two of three fuel tanks not certified for aviation use | All maintenance and inspection under a maintenance programme approved by AFAC for that balloon model, built on the manufacturer's manual (clause 17.2.2.1). In-house work is limited to line maintenance and homologated tanks (clause 17.8.1) | Ask who approved the maintenance programme. The rule fixes no “inspection every X flights”: the intervals come from the manufacturer. Anyone quoting a fixed number is inventing it |
| Envelope repaired with fabric and stitching outside the manufacturer's manual | Type certificate, or a validated foreign one, for every balloon (clause 9.1.1). Airworthiness certificate valid two years (art. 32 Act; art. 127 Regulation); after it lapses there are 60 calendar days to revalidate or AFAC cancels the registration | Ask the expiry date of the airworthiness certificate. It is a date, and a date is either past or it is not |
| AFAC had no balloon-specific rule and no periodic oversight | That gap is what the circular closed. AFAC is also required to run a safety oversight system and to conduct inspections and verifications of operators (art. 78 Bis 1, fr. I and VI, Civil Aviation Act) | The two sweeps, May 2025 and March 2026, are that obligation being used. They are also why nine companies and then three ended up sealed |
Two more clauses speak directly to the two 2026 cases, and neither existed in April 2023. The launch field itself needs its own operating permit from AFAC (clause 13.2.2.1) — almost nobody asks for that one. And the fuel rule quoted further up (13.14.1 and 13.14.2) is the exact clause the 21 April 2026 forced landing sits against.
The circular puts no number on the wind. Ours is 10 km/h
We read all 59 pages looking for a national figure. There is no maximum wind speed in the Mexican rule. What there is: the pilot in command may only start or continue a visual flight if conditions are at or above VFR minima and within the limits stated in that balloon's flight manual (clause 13.21.1), the operator's manual must declare the wind limits of each balloon it flies (annex 4), the pilot must satisfy himself before launch with an updated forecast for the actual site (13.8.1), and the pilot has express authority to cancel a flight when conditions are not optimal (13.12.2 III). So the limit is set by the manufacturer of your balloon and applied by the person flying it, that morning, on that field. If an operator tells you “AFAC does not let us fly above X km/h”, that figure does not exist in the rule.
Which leaves each company to state its own, and most of them will not. Ours is 10 km/h — about 6 mph — of surface wind, measured on the launch field at first light, before inflation. Above it we do not fly. It is a ceiling and not an automatism: below it the pilot in command can still stand the morning down, and nothing in that number outranks him. A grounded morning costs you nothing and you rebook as many times as the weather takes, which is the half of the answer that matters — a strict wind limit paired with a punitive cancellation fee is an incentive to launch anyway. That combination, and not the wind, is what the five rows above are actually made of.
The 2023 case reached a court
One row of the consequences table, opened up. Almost nobody follows this part, and it is the part that tells you whether this gets prosecuted or forgotten.
The charge itself is worth reading in full, because it is not the one people assume. According to El Financiero, quoting the State of Mexico prosecutor's office, one person was detained for the probable offences of homicide and injury by omission with dolo eventual — the Mexican equivalent of recklessness with foreseen consequences, not simple negligence — and was held in prison at Otumba. The same report reproduces the prosecutor's account: after roughly 45 minutes of flight the pilot was manoeuvring to land when the balloon began to burn and to climb again. That places the sequence in the same phase as four of the five rows above.
The pilot was arrested in the neighbouring state days after the accident (El Financiero), and a company employee was separately charged (El Universal). We do not publish the names of the individuals or the company.
The pilot was released in September 2024 (La Silla Rota). And on 20 December 2024 all four defendants walked free under a reparation agreement — an immediate financial settlement: the pilot, the person who recruited tourists, the person who sold the package and the balloon’s owner (Telediario).
Nobody was sentenced to prison over those two deaths. That is not our opinion of the Mexican justice system. It is the fact, and we leave it where it can be seen. For the 16 March 2026 accident, the only thing confirmed by an authority is that AFAC opened an administrative investigation and identified the aircraft by its registration in its statement. We do not reproduce that registration: in practice it is the company’s name written another way, and that investigation is still open.
What one outlet says and another does not
Nobody else publishes this, because it looks untidy. We publish it because a record that quietly picks the better-reading version stops being a record. We never average.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone.
| The detail | One source says | The other says | What we do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Injured on 1 April 2023 | Two dead and one girl injured (CNN en Español) | Two dead and two injured (N+) | We publish both and do not average them |
| Injured on 23 May 2025 | 12 injured, per El Financiero, and also Proceso and Infobae | 13 per El Valle; 14 per La Jornada | We publish 12: most outlets, and the most detailed report. If a range is needed we say “at least 12” |
| Time of the 16 March 2026 accident | Around 08:40, per the AFAC statement quoted by El Financiero | Around 09:10, per Proceso | We leave both times visible |
| Exact spot of the 2026 crash | The damaged cables fed Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz street (El Financiero) | Cruz de la Misión street, in the community of San Lorenzo Tlamimilolpan (Proceso) | Both streets are in the same municipality, so neither outlet is wrong about the place. We keep both rather than pick the tidier one |
| Figures from AFAC’s 2026 inspection | TV Azteca, quoting in full: “a total of 46 balloons in service were inspected, 23 of them with irregularities” | Infobae words it as having verified “23 of the 46” operating there, implying 23 were inspected, not that 23 were irregular | The gap is large and changes the headline. TV Azteca is the only one quoting the whole sentence: we attribute it by name, not as an official AFAC figure |
| Private or commercial pilot licence? | The April 2023 coverage repeated that a private free-flight balloon licence is enough (Chilango) | The circular in force requires a commercial balloon pilot licence for sightseeing flights (clause 18.1.3, CO AV-91.03/24 R1) | The circular wins: it is a rule, it is balloon-specific and it is later. Always ask for the commercial one |
The thread that ran through the reporting
Read the Mexican coverage of that week and one phrase repeats. It is not the activity. It is who is selling it.
The problem described again and again was unauthorised operators selling flights to tourists. That is a different sentence from “ballooning is dangerous”, and the difference matters to you, because one of the two is inside your control.
In the days after the 2023 accident, N+ published the list of documents a passenger should demand before boarding, dictated by a licensed sightseeing operator. There are six, and you can ask for all six on WhatsApp before you put money down: the registration certificate, the airworthiness certificate, a current insurance policy, the technical requirements certificate, the sightseeing permit with its start of operations, and the pilot's commercial licence — commercial, not private: a private licence does not allow anyone to charge a tourist for the seat. The same report lists the five requirements AFAC imposes on a balloon operator, among them complying with NOM-008-SCT3-2002 and keeping in force an insurance policy covering damage to passengers.
That list is reproduced clause by clause on our safety page, and turned into a side-by-side sheet with our own column already filled in on how to compare operators. What we charge for each tier, and how many passengers share the basket in each one, is published in the 2026 price table.
The part you can control
You cannot audit an aircraft from your phone. You can check paperwork, and paperwork is exactly what was missing in the reporting. Six lines here; the clause-by-clause version of this check lives on the balloon safety guide and operator check and is not repeated in full on this one.
This table is the short version. The full seven-document check lives on the safety page.
| Ask any operator for | What a legal answer looks like | What to do if you do not get it |
|---|---|---|
| The AFAC air-operator authorisation | A document number you can read, with a validity date | Walk away. This is the one that is not negotiable |
| The aircraft registration | A Mexican registration marking, XB-something, painted on the envelope | Ask to see the balloon before you pay |
| The airworthiness certificate | A certificate number and an expiry date. It runs two years | Without it you do not know what you are climbing into |
| The pilot's licence | Licence class and number, issued by AFAC, with the word commercial on it | Book with someone who will show it |
| Passenger insurance | A policy with an insured sum, not the word “insured” | Assume there is none |
| Who actually flies you | The name of the operating company, not the reseller | If the seller will not name the operator, that is your answer |
Three checks the operator cannot fail for you
The table above depends on someone answering you. These three do not. Two of them you can do tonight, from wherever you are reading this.
Swipe the table sideways on a phone.
| The check | How it works | What it will not tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Type the registration into the public aircraft register | AFAC publishes a downloadable spreadsheet of every aircraft registered in Mexico — no login, no request: registro-aeronautico-afac (XLSX). It carries 6,833 aircraft, of which 256 are balloons. Counting them ourselves: 100% carry the XB- prefix, 102 have a service type that includes sightseeing, and 21 are registered as “servicios aéreos a terceros (panorámicos)” — the exact category a paid tourist flight belongs in | Its cut-off is September 2023 and we found no later file. And no record says “Teotihuacán” in the base-of-operations column, so it cannot map who flies this valley. It answers one question well: does this registration exist, whose is it, and what service is it authorised for |
| Ask the State for a certificate — three working days | The Mexican Aircraft Register is public by law (art. 47, Civil Aviation Act). Anyone may request a certification of what a folio contains, and also a certificate stating that no entry exists at all (arts. 38 and 39, Register Regulation). The deadline is three working days from the request (art. 41). Registration certificates, airworthiness certificates, permits and insurance policies are all inscribed there | It costs a fee and it takes those three days, so it is not a same-morning check. If you are deciding tonight for tomorrow, use the other two |
| Four things visible on the field, before you board | The registration and the national flag displayed on the envelope (clause 10.2). The documents carried on board — airworthiness, registration, logbook and the AFAC-approved insurance policy — original or certified copy (clause 21.1; art. 32 Act). The safety briefing, which the pilot must give and must confirm you understood, preferably by demonstration (clause 13.13.1). The recovery vehicle, with a dry-powder extinguisher of 2 kg or more, first-aid kit, radio and an emergency protocol with phone numbers (clause 20.3.1) | Nothing here proves the paperwork behind it is current. It proves the opposite very fast: if the envelope has no visible registration, you have your answer before anyone speaks |
What does not exist, said precisely enough to survive an argument
“There is no list of balloon companies in Mexico” is roughly true and easy to knock down, because a single news report naming nine suspended companies appears to disprove it. So here is the version that holds up, in three parts.
1. What does not exist is a public, consultable register of authorised operators — the list you would actually need to compare one company against another. AFAC's page for concession and permit holders publishes circulars, not companies, and its open-data portal publishes no such register either.
2. What does exist, in bursts, is what the press publishes after each enforcement sweep: around 20 launch sites in May 2025, 46 balloons in March 2026, nine companies suspended and then three. That is a photograph of one morning, taken because something went wrong. It is not a register, it is not complete, and it will not be there when you go looking next month.
3. What anyone can consult, any day, is the Mexican aircraft register — by registration. That is a different question answered well: it tells you about the aircraft, not about the company. Which is precisely why the registration painted on the envelope is worth more to you than the logo on the van, and why the whole of this page keeps sending you back to it.
The practical consequence of all three: a record like this one has to be assembled by hand from press reports, and nobody — including us — can hand you a ranking of operators. What we can hand you is a method, and it is the table above.
When this page is telling you not to book
Including with us. We sell these flights, and there are people who should read this record and then close the tab.
- If you want a morning with no risk in it. This one has some. Everything above is the evidence, and no amount of good paperwork turns a balloon into a lift.
- If you are not willing to spend ten minutes on documents. The variable that separates the five events above is not the weather — the weather caused none of them. It is who was selling the flight. If you are going to choose on price alone, this record cannot protect you and neither can we.
- If you are pregnant, or the passenger is under five years old. Both are absolute here and no operator can waive them for you. If someone offers to, that is the most useful thing you will learn about them all week.
- If you are booking through a reseller who will not name the company that actually flies. In the 2023 case, four people were charged, and two of them were the person who recruited the tourists and the person who sold the package — not the pilot. The seller is part of the chain, and a seller who hides the operator has told you where in the chain they sit.
- If you need to decide tonight and were counting on the register certificate. That takes three working days. Without it, the minimum is to read the registration on the envelope before you climb in, and to ask for the permit and the pilot's licence in writing beforehand.
- If reading that nobody went to prison for those two deaths changes how you feel about flying here. That is a legitimate reason not to book, and we would rather you leave on that than find it out afterwards.
Ours, with the numbers on it
What we can put in writing today, with the number on it.
Our flights are operated by AFAC-licensed pilots, passenger insurance is included in all seven packages with no separate charge, and a shared basket carries up to 16 passengers, and the cap is per package: 16 on the five shared packages, 12 on the birthday flight, and 2 to 8 on the private flight, minimum two. One flight a day, lift-off around 6:00 a.m. after a 5:30 a.m. check-in (4:30 a.m. hotel pickup on the packages with transport), 45 to 60 minutes in the air and 30 seats a day. Minimum age five; no flying during pregnancy.
And who is actually flying the basket. Around 35 pilots fly with this brand, so no page can honestly promise you one particular name, and a closed list of five would not be the team. What can be shown is the ones passengers name themselves, in writing, in our Google reviews: Antonio, Roberto G. — signed “Roberto Garces” by one passenger — Raúl, Marco B., Naien, Naren, Fernando, Fernando F., Héctor, Alejandro S. and María. On 7 August 2026 a passenger, Joy Pogoy, wrote that Antonio “has 14 years of experience”. That is a passenger reporting what he was told on the field, not a figure we are certifying — and this page has spent 3,000 words telling you to ask for the licence rather than take anyone's word for it, ours included.
One thing that follows from those numbers and is worth knowing: the circular requires an extra crew member on board once a balloon carries 20 or more passengers, or is 375,000 cubic feet or larger (clause 19.1). At 16 we are under that threshold, which is why one pilot flies the basket. That is not a boast, it is the arithmetic — and it is the kind of number you should be able to get out of anyone before you pay.
And the policy people are most afraid to ask about: if the weather does not allow a safe flight, we reschedule at no cost and with no limit on the number of times. If you are the one who cancels, we do not refund, but your payment is not lost: it becomes credit and you change the date, valid twelve months from the day you bought. Payment is online in full at booking, and card payments carry a 5% surcharge.
The seven packages run from $2,100 to $3,750 MXN per person (about US$115 to US$205), side by side in the 2026 price table. The cheapest one, flight only with the insurance already inside, is the $2,100 MXN (about US$115) Teotihuacan balloon ride. And if something did happen: Mexican law sets a floor for the indemnity, not a ceiling and not a guaranteed insured sum, and the claim lapses one year after the events (art. 73, Civil Aviation Act). The full chain of articles, with the arithmetic, is on the balloon safety guide and operator check.
Everything on this page except the basket size applies identically to every package: the traditional flight, the flight with breakfast in the cave and the birthday flight. Same pilots, same AFAC licences, same insurance, same weather policy, same 6:00 a.m. lift-off. The only number that moves between packages is how many people share the basket.
Straight answers
Has a hot air balloon crashed at Teotihuacan?
Did anyone die?
What caused the 2026 accident?
Why do you not publish the companies' names?
Is ballooning over Teotihuacan safe?
Five accidents over how many flights?
Was any of the five accidents yours?
At what wind speed do you cancel a balloon flight?
At what point in the flight do hot air balloon accidents happen?
What did the official investigation into the 2023 Teotihuacan balloon accident find?
Did AFAC suspend balloon companies at Teotihuacan?
What happened after each of the five Teotihuacan balloon accidents?
Was the fatal hot air balloon accident of May 2025 at Teotihuacan?
Was anyone held responsible for the 2023 deaths?
Where can I read the primary sources?
How do I check the registration of the balloon I am getting into?
What changed after the Teotihuacan balloon accidents?
Who cannot fly?
What to read after this
2026 prices, all seven packages
$2,100 to $3,750 MXN per person (about US$115 to US$205), side by side, with what each one actually includes.
How to choose an operator
The five criteria that genuinely differ between companies, and the questions to copy and paste.
Is the 4:30 a.m. worth it?
What the morning really costs in time and money, and the four travellers who should not book.
Getting there from Mexico City
Five routes compared, and the only two that reach a 6:00 a.m. lift-off.
Which month has the calmest dawn wind
Month by month, and exactly what happens to your money when the wind stands the morning down.
In their own words
4.8 out of 5 from 191 reviews on our Google Business Profile — open the listing and read every one of them. The 6 below were pasted out of that panel word for word, the customer's own spelling included. All 6 carry their own score because the owner confirmed each one against his panel; not a single one is assumed. 5 of them also carry the day they were written, between August 4 and 7, 2026. For the others the panel only said “a week ago”, and that day is not ours to guess. They name their pilots: Antonio and Roberto G.
This experience was amazing. One of a kind. Such a smooth operation. Our pilot, Antonio was so kind, especially to our 6 year old, and made us feel very comfortable. Thank you!
Great experience. 10/10, out captain Roberto G and his team were great
It was an amazing experience, very smooth going and views to cherish for a long time, definitely would do again.
Really nice experience!! The people are nice, just make sure you get your photos that you want!
Excellent option to see the pyramids from above!
Had a wonderful flying experience!
Book your Teotihuacan balloon flight
Send us the seven questions before you send us a peso. AFAC-certified pilots, passenger insurance in all seven packages, a free reschedule if the morning is not safe, and rides from $2,100 MXN (about US$115). Book online or message our English-speaking team.
Hours
24/7 assistance · sunrise flights only
One flight a day: check-in 5:30 AM at the We Fly Teotihuacan reception, lift-off around 6:00 AM
(4:30 AM hotel pickup on the packages with transport),
subject to weather conditions.