Jonathan Trappe, a balloonist who had been attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean but was forced to land in a remote area on Newfoundland's west coast, was picked up on Friday afternoon by a helicopter that had been chartered by CBC to conduct an aerial survey of the area. 
 
 "I've never been so glad to see the media," Trappe told CBC News videojournalist Lindsay Bird when she found him. 
 
 'I've never been so glad to see the media.'—Jonathan Trappe 
 
 Trappe left Caribou, Maine, near the New Brunswick border, on Thursday in a small boat suspended below more than 300 helium-filled balloons. 
 
 He may not have made it to his European destination, but Trappe said the journey was about more than that. 
 
 "We set out on this expedition for the adventure, and we got the adventure," Trappe said. 
 
 "The destination was always unknown, and it's pretty grand where we've come in to. It's not the destination I set out for, but it's kind of the way with real adventure — adventure isn't what you planned on, it's what you find, and that's what we have today." 
 
 Trappe said he was burning through ballast too quickly to make it across the Atlantic and was forced to choose between landing in the isolated woods Thursday night or ditching over the ocean sometime Friday. 
 
 'Hmm, this doesn't look like France' 
 
 Once he was on the ground, Trappe said, he contacted his crew via satellite message to assure them that he was safe and there was not an emergency. 
 
 "The Atlantic Ocean has been crossed many times, and in many ways, but never quite like this," Trappe said in a promotional video. 
 
 "Hmm, this doesn't look like France," Trappe wrote in a post on his Facebook page Thursday. 
 
 Shortly after, Trappe posted that he had set up an exposure canopy on his boat to settle in for the night and included a link to a satellite map showing his location. 
 
 Trappe, who had intended to become the first person to fly across the Atlantic with only the aid of cluster balloons, landed in a remote area south of the small Bay of Islands community of Lark Harbour. 
 
 Much of the area surrounding where Trappe landed is impassable. 
 
 There are no roads leading to the location, but residents had been trying to reach him on ATVs, without success. 
 
 Trappe has made a name as an adventurer using clusters of balloons, including flying in a house, much as in the Disney-Pixar animated film Up. ||||| ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Two balloonists crossing over the Pacific Ocean from Japan surpassed a distance record on Thursday for gas-filled balloon travel and are heading toward a landing in Mexico's Baja California in two days, officials said. 
 
 Balloon Pilots Troy Bradley, an American, and Leonid Tiukhtyaev, a Russian, who are collectively dubbed "Two Eagles" had traveled more than 5,260 miles (8,465 km) by Thursday afternoon, according to a tracking website set up for their journey. 
 
 They have surpassed the distance record of 5,209 miles (8,383 km) for gas balloons set on the only previous manned trans-Pacific flight, in 1981. The pilots are more than 250 miles (400 km) west-northwest of San Francisco, California. 
 
 When they eclipsed the distance record, a round of applause broke out in the mission control room at the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum in New Mexico and people there posed for pictures with the mile counter, said Art Lloyd Jr, a mission support control worker at the site. 
 
 "We're really excited and just now concentrating on getting them to a nice safe landing," Lloyd said. 
 
 Meanwhile, the pilots who took off on Saturday from Japan are pursuing a flight duration record of 137 hours aloft set in 1978 by a team crossing the Atlantic. That is expected to happen on Friday morning, Lloyd said. 
 
 The pilots are on track to land in Baja California, in Mexico, on Saturday, said officials with the Balloon Museum. 
 
 The balloon, which relies solely on an enclosed chamber of helium gas for lift, is different from hot air balloons and so-called Roziere balloons, which rely on both hot air and lighter-than-air gas. Roziere balloons have by far the greatest range of the three types. 
 
 Lloyd said the cramped conditions of the capsule has not affected the pilots, who have subsisted on a diet that includes fresh fruit, freeze-dried hikers' meals, beef jerky and the occasional hot meal from a small stove. They are equipped with cold weather gear including sleeping bags and a heater. 
 
 They had earlier taken a track that would have brought them to southwestern Canada, but because of weather changes, they opted for the path toward Mexico, officials said. 
 
 Their records must be officially certified by the National Aeronautic Association and the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, which can take months, a mission spokeswoman said. 
 
 (Reporting by Joseph J. Kolb; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler)
– A US balloonist who was trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean using hundreds of helium-filled balloons has landed short of his goal in Newfoundland. With sense of humor intact: "This doesn't look like France," he posted on Facebook. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported today that it used a helicopter to retrieve Jonathan Trappe from the remote area where he landed a night earlier. "It's not the destination I set out for, but it's kind of the way with real adventure," Trappe told the CBC. "Adventure isn't what you planned on, it's what you find, and that's what we have today." Trappe landed safely in a rugged area near York Harbour after reporting that he was having trouble controlling his balloons yesterday evening, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Instead of using a conventional hot-air balloon, Trappe was using more than 300 colorful helium-filled balloons, like those used in the animated movie Up. He said his calculations indicated he wasn't going to make it to Europe, so he decided to set down on land before crossing over open ocean.