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The pilot of a hot air balloon that crashed in the Arizona desert in January, leaving him and three other people dead, had high levels of ketamine in his system at the time of the incident, according to an autopsy and toxicology report obtained by the Arizona Republic. Cornelius van der Walt, 47, had “60 times the threshold” of ketamine content in his system when compared to the amount that is considered by U.K. authorities to impair an individual’s driving ability, according to the report. The toxicology panels were conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration and NMS Labs. Van der Walt was not known to have a prescription for ketamine, according to the Republic. His death was ruled an accident, and its cause listed as multiple blunt force trauma. The hot air balloon he had been piloting on Jan. 14 had been carrying four other passengers and eight skydivers. The skydivers had left the basket by the time the crash began, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board. The one passenger who survived, 23-year-old Valerie Stutterheim, was left with a traumatic brain injury. A GoFundMe launched to cover her medical and rehabilitative costs had raised nearly $150,000 as of Thursday.
