After having reached the North Pole by pulling alone his sled for 63 days (1986), drifted for four months on the pack ice aboard the Polar Observer (2002), Jean-Louis Etienne decided to embark on the solitary crossing of the Arctic Ocean. in a balloon: Spitzbergen, North Pole, Alaska, a 3500 Km course. Through this daring crossing, he wants to draw the attention of the world to the climatic chaos on a planetary scale that the disappearance of the Arctic sea ice would cause.
On April 5, 2010 at 3 am, the router Luc Trullemans gives the green light weather. JLE takes off from Spitzbergen at the command of a « rozière », a mixed helium / hot air balloon. Arriving in the vicinity of the North Pole, a storm will drive the balloon to Siberia where it will land after 5 days of a tough journey: most often without visibility, power failure, flight 200 m from the pack ice, risk of grounding, insomnia, fire on a burner, cerebral edema at 5000 m altitude to join Siberia!
Although the wind pushed him away from the road he had set for himself, he managed the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean in a balloon.
