Illusionist David Blaine soars above desert holding helium balloons l GMA

that breathtaking stunt by illusionist david blaine soaring over four miles above the arizona desert while holding on to 52 giant helium-filled balloons it was blaine's first live stunt in years with more than 6 million views and counting abc's matt guttman joins us with more on all of that good morning matt hey good morning amy and this was the stunt that david blaine says he always wanted to pull off and it's pretty much what every kid including me has dreamed about but this feat wasn't nearly as easy as just grabbing balloons and floating off into the sky because blaine had to become an faa certified commercial hot-air balloon pilot a skydiver and he spent the past two years perfecting what he called his most ambitious performance yet took 52 giant helium balloons to get him up and gravity to bring david blaine back down to the arizona desert floor in his first major live event in nearly a decade the illusionist soaring more than four and a half miles in the air hoisted by all those balloons it was a scene lifted right out of the beloved kids movie up boys [Music] and blaine dedicating the feet to his own kid nine-year-old dessa who was right there by his side as he took off and as he floated off into the stratosphere the temperature dropping into the single digits the air dangerously thin available oxygen only at about half the amount at sea level putting him at a serious risk hypoxia is when you don't get enough oxygen because you go too high you have no idea what you're doing so you're completely foggy it's like you're drunk and as he keeps climbing blaine is communicating with his ground team including dessa how many hats do you think you're gonna go up um we're at 16 000 now [Applause] and we're probably going to go up to where the airplanes go and as he climbs to nearly a jet's cruising altitude the oxygen shortage hits can you see it it's at 95. blaine finally pulling his oxygen tank out trying to get his wits about him for the most dangerous part yet coming back down finally almost an hour after he took off as he reaches 24 900 feet he gets the signal releases the safety and plummets at over 125 miles an hour [Applause] for a minute straight he free falls towards the earth then pulls that parachute cord down in a gallop almost deliriously happy [Applause] wow that was awesome and for the flight back to go see his daughter dessa this time he took a helicopter that was actually beautiful from top to bottom luke aiken is a professional skydiver who helped blaine prepare and talked him through it while he was in the air revealing just how hard it was to get this right an event that requires weather to be bright wind has to be perfect everything has to line up there's no stop and start it's all live for everyone to see such an incredibly complex stunt and made more so because so much could go wrong and it was complicated by the fact that originally blaine apparently wanted to try it without a parachute but the basic idea of a human grabbing a bunch of balloons and floating right off into space well that just made for an uplifting story sorry guys i had to do that dad joke i've been planning it that was thank you for that thank you for that matt yeah i don't know if tj is thanking you for that but no it's fine yes i think i did that when i was six or something right no i'm kidding it was incredible well hey there gma fans robin roberts here thanks for checking out our youtube channel lots of great stuff here so go on click the subscribe button right over right over here to get more of awesome videos and content from gma every day anytime we thank you for watching and we'll see you in the morning on gma

Channel: Good Morning America

Views: 333,037

Rating: 4.8113947 out of 5

Keywords: David, Blaine, balloons, Arizona, helium, floating, up, stunt, magician, YouTube, Live, pixar, gma, abc, news, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-72790464, david blaine ascension, david blaine balloon, david blaine daughter, david blaine live, david blaine, david blaine youtube, up balloon scene, good morning america

Id: mPXXItve2Pg

Length: 4min 9sec (249 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020