Talk:East Germany balloon escape

	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 26, 2018. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that in 1979, eight people escaped from East Germany* to the West in a homemade hot air balloon?*
	Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on September 16, 2019, September 16, 2021, and September 16, 2023.

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Problem with distance and time[edit]

The article says 25 minutes (or 28 minutes) in the air, at a speed of about 30kmph, implying that the distance traveled was about 14km or less. However the distance from Ziegenrück to Naila is about 40km, and the distance from Ziegenrück to the border is about 30km, so something doesn't add up. Anyone able to clarify this? Gilgamesh4 (talk) 09:51, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Gilgamesh4: Ziegenrück was only the testsite, so the distance is not relevant. What is missing in the article is the actual takeoff location which was somewhere near Oberlemnitz. The takeoff location in the infobox points to the hometown instead. Agathoclea (talk) 09:59, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Agathoclea: That makes sense - thank-you :-) (I see you have edited the infobox - I've also changed 'the clearing' to 'a clearing' to avoid the impression that it was the same site. I guess it's obvious that they would test the balloon much further away from the border and launch from as close as they could) Gilgamesh4 (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath[edit]

It seems like the Aftermath section glosses over the imprisonment of friends and relatives because one friend was not released due to the intervention of Amnesty International and he subsequently became an informant for the Stasi.

Daniel Quinlan (talk) 19:25, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]