• At 3:39 KMGH/KUSA report no one is inside the balloon. “We know the balloon is down, and there’s nobody in it. Now we wait to find out. What a day this has been” – Shepard Smith.
“I have sat in front of this television and watched things that I never dreamed were possible, and there is this.” – Shepard Smith
This afternoon, the cablers took live feeds from Ft. Collins, Colorado of a 6 year old boy trapped inside a silver disc balloon soaring high through the air. (AP story)
• Local news helicopters from KUSA, KCNC and KMGH are assisting the Sheriff’s office as they track the balloon.
• MSNBC and HLN reported the story at 2:37pmET followed by FNC at 2:40 (coming out of commercial), CNN at 2:42. MSNBC, FNC and CNN had been covering the president’s town hall meeting in New Orleans.
• CNN’s Chad Myers and FNC’s Janice Dean joined their network broadcasts to provide weather reports along with the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore for MSNBC.
• At 3:35pmET the balloon landed, softly. Shepard Smith asked “is the little boy inside?”
• At 3:37pmET rescue crews circle the balloon waiting to open it, to determine if the boy is inside.
• Gawker reports the boy and his family were twice on the ABC show “Wife Swap.” “The boy is Falcon Heene, son of Mayumi and Richard, who is a scientist and storm chaser.”
• As of 4:08pmET the cable networks remain in continuing coverage of the story as search for 6-year-old Falcon Heene continues.
• At 4:20pmET a neighbor of the Hennes, on MSNBC, describes what happened: “There was a lot of panic in the backyard. The mother seemed very distraught.”
• CNN first to commercial break at 4:25pmET and returns from break with the Situation Room covering other news.
• As for overall coverage, TVNewser is starting to hear from the networks. A CNN spokesperson tells us, “Standard procedure across CNN networks is to put in place a delay. On this occasion it was 10 seconds. The delay was in place from the time we went to air with video through to the discovery that no one was inside.”
• At 5pmET, FNC airs Glenn Beck, CNN returns to continuing coverage of the balloon story and MSNBC is airing Hardball.
• 6:07pmET: 6-year-old Falcon Heene has been found safe, hiding in a box in the garage attic
• 6:30pmET: ABC World News, NBC Nightly News and the CBS Evening News are all leading with the balloon story.
• Below, the storm-chasing Henne family was featured on CBS4 in Denver.