Crew Near Completion Of Historic Balloon Journey

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two pilots from the United States and Russia have traveled farther and longer in a gas balloon than anyone in history, trying to eliminate any remaining debate over a century of records in long-distance ballooning.The Two Eagles pilots surpassed the distance and duration records that have held since the 1970s and 1980s, and they were aiming Saturday for a safe landing somewhere on a beach in Mexico's Baja California peninsula.Troy Bradley of Albuquerque and Leonid Tiukhtyaev of Russia lifted off from Japan last Sunday morning, and by Friday, they beat what's considered the "holy grail" of ballooning achievements, the 137-hour duration record set in 1978 by the Double Eagle crew of Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman in the first balloon flight across the Atlantic.By early Saturday morning, the Two Eagles team had been in the air nearly 155 hours and was smashing the distance record, having traveled more than 6,500 miles, including the crossing of the Pacific Ocean."The technology has improved so much in the last couple of years.