The hot air balloon is the first successful human-carrying flight technology.

The first untethered

manned hot air balloon flight was performed by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent
d'Arlandes on November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, in a balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers,
Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier and Joseph-Michel Montgolfier.

Of the two brothers, it was Joseph who has first interested in aeronautics. He made his first definitive
experiments in November 1782 and reported some years later that he was watching a fire one evening
while contemplating one of the great military issues of the day, an assault on the fortress of Gibraltar.
Joseph mused on the possibility of an air assault using troops lifted by the same force that was lifting the
embers from the fire. He believed that the smoke itself was the buoyant part and contained within it a
special gas which he called “Montgolfier gas”. Joseph recruited his brother to balloon building , on 14
December 1782 they did their very first test flight and then they lost control after floating nearly 2
kilometers and was destroyed after landing .

The deadliest accident in recent memory happened in 1989, when 13 people were killed as two hot air
balloons collided in Australia.