From the BBC
BBC News - Hydrogen race balloon goes missing in Adriatic storm
"One of the balloons taking part in the Gordon Bennett Cup is missing in thunderstorms over the Adriatic.
The missing hydrogen balloon, piloted by Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer Davis, is one of three US entries.
A spokeswoman at race control in Bristol said contact had been lost with the balloon, and there was concern that it might have had to ditch."
The live tracking information seems to have been switched off. Keep fingers crossed guys thet all aboard will be OK.
Hope that the organisers will soon allow the live tracking to resume.
Very well done to the Swiss team for their magnificant effort.
Any news re. the 'missing' please post. I'm hoping that they are alive and well.
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Update from the Guardian newspaper UK
Balloon race pair missing over Adriatic
Two Americans taking part in the Gordon Bennett gas balloon race are no longer in contact with their support team
Concern is growing over the fate of two Americans who went missing this morning while competing in the world's oldest balloon race.
Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer Davis lost contact with their support team a while after 7am UK time as they flew over the Adriatic Sea. The pair are taking part in
the 54th annual Gordon Bennett gas balloon race.
The Italian coastguard has dispatched a helicopter and rescue boat to search for the pair, with thunderstorms expected in the area later today. All the other competing balloons have landed safely, with the British team of David Hempleman-Adams and Simon Carey coming third after touching down in Serbia at 11am this morning.
The race saw competitors fly from Easter Compton, in Bristol, at 11pm on Saturday. The winning team is the one which flies their gas-powered balloon the furthest from the start location.
The vast majority of teams foundered at the south coast of France, after having flown over 600 miles (1,000km), however teams from Switzerland, Germany, France, Britain and the US continued across the Mediterranean.
A
tracking graphic on the website for the Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon race shows the French team landed near Naples, and the German, Swiss and British teams continued across to the Baltic coast.
The tracker shows that the last contact from the US team came in the middle of the Adriatic Sea. Don Cameron, race flight director, said: "We're all somewhat worried about them.
"We've been in touch with the Italian rescue services, and they have deployed a helicopter and fast boat in the area, but they're getting no contact from their emergency locator transmitter, so we just don't know if they're even still airborne or not."
An emergency locator transmitter can be activated by the balloon pilots, or will activate automatically if it comes into contact with water.
"We're a little bit worried because there are thunderstorms in or over the Adriatic Sea," Cameron added. "At the moment there's just concern. There's nothing we can do except wait for news."
Cameron said Abruzzo and Rymer Davis, who together won the Gordon Bennett race in 2004, were "very experienced" fliers.
The last update on the Gordon Bennett tracking page showed the pair had flown 1,758km. The Swiss team of Kurt Frieden and Pascal Witpraechtiger won the race with after flying 2,434km, landing in Romania on the coast of the Black Sea yesterday.
The German team made it to Moldova before touching down this morning.
Jo Bailey, a member of the British flight control team, said their team were disappointed but had to land in the face of deteriorating weather conditions.
"It's such a shame because David [Hempleman-Adams] was really going for the win," she said. Hempleman-Adams won the race with a different partner – Jon Mason – in 2008.
"At the end of the day, however much he wants to win, safety is paramount."
Hempleman-Adams and Carey landed in woodland, using trees to break their speed, Bailey said.
A post on the team's blog said they had been flying at a low level before landing in Nis, Serbia.
Bailey said the pair had been collected by their retrieve crew less than five minutes after landing and were safe and well.
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Fingers crossed for these brave and adventurous aviators.
Coldair