Change of course for Jean-Louis Etienne 

First, a 36-hour crossing of Spitsbergen in dense fog, with low flying between the sea and mountains, followed by 12 hours of total calm and an unobstructed view of the ice cap. Despite a few scares, the situation was under control… until Mother Nature decided to get involved! First electricity outage due to lack of sunlight penetrating to the solar panels and a violent storm forced Jean-Louis Etienne to go through 15 hours of manual piloting at between 150 and 300 meters of altitude, at 90 km/h: tense. The batteries were recharged at 3 000 meters, which caused the balloon to deviate from its original flight path. A second descent to 300 meters and the problems mount: electricity shortage, manual operation, back up to 5 000 meters, hallucinations, an electrical surge that damaged the instrument panel, a gas leak: suddenly, getting back to the Russian coast had become an inevitable emergency!

The sixth day after this perilous crossing began, Jean-Louis Etienne entered Siberian air space without authorization for a forced landing. Unforeseen events, surely, but nonetheless the scientific mission was accomplished: Jean-Louis Etienne was able—in spite of it all—to make to planned measurements of atmospheric CO2 for subsequent analysis by the Laboratory of the Climate and Environmental Sciences: this data will help us to gain insight into climate change trends.

A peine de retour sur terre, l'infatigable médecin-explorateur songe déjà à ses prochaines aventures en savourant son exploit : être l’auteur du premier survol du Pôle Nord en ballon.