The Gordon Bennett Cup race began Sept. 25 in Bristol, England, with 20 hydrogen balloons trying to see who can fly the farthest on 1,000 cubic meters of gas. They flew over the English Channel, and most of the balloons made it only as far as France or northern Spain.
But six teams -- including Richard Abruzzo of New Mexico and Carol Rymer Davis of Colorado, who won the same race together in 2004 -- ventured even farther across the Mediterranean. Race trackers last heard from the pair early Wednesday, European time, hours after their balloon crossed into Italy and encountered thunderstorms over the Adriatic. (For a map showing the competitors' flight routes, click here.)
Since then, all other teams have landed and been accounted for. The balloon that flew the farthest, manned by a Swiss team, landed Wednesday in eastern Romania, more than 1,500 miles from the race's start, the BBC reported. But Abruzzo and Davis are still believed to be over the water, where landing is dangerous if they run out of fuel.
Italian maritime authorities have launched a search, and officials in neighboring Croatia have put out an alert to all ships in the area to watch for the Americans' balloon, race flight director Don Cameron told CNN.
The duo have a satellite phone, VHF radios, a radar transponder and two mobile phones -- along with survival suits, life jackets and two life rafts, he said. "It has not been possible to make contact on any of these," Cameron told The Denver Post.
"We are hoping that good news will come, but are becoming increasingly concerned," Cameron told CNN. "We are in close contact with Richard and Carol's families."
Both U.S. competitors are highly experienced balloonists, having won the Bennett Cup together six years ago. In 1978, Abruzzo's father, Ben, became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon. He crossed the Pacific in 1981, but died four years later in a solo plane crash.
The Bennett Cup is considered the most dangerous balloon race in the world. "It's too risky," Australian balloon adventurer Dick Smith told The Sydney Morning Herald when asked whether he'd consider competing.
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"The problem with any long-distance ballooning is occasionally the weather will change to a situation where the risks have increased dramatically, and you can't necessarily land before you get to that weather," Smith said. Davis is a 65-year-old radiologist from Colorado who gave a 2007 interview with Denver Woman magazine in which she described the grueling conditions during her previous Bennett Cup competition.
"We raced through six hours of drenching heavy rain -- it was like the tropics. It poured into the basket. We were just soaked. It was heavy enough that it formed a little lake in the top of the balloon, so we pulled the valve and it would drench us," she told the magazine, according to The Associated Press.
"This was my Olympics," she added. "I was on the podium with my gold medal, and they played the national anthem and I cried."