meanwhile, 10-year-old aaron whitaker is shaken but in good spirits. >> would you ever fly again? when i'm older. a couple years away, yeah, probably. but this year, no. >> sir, what about you? >> you betcha. >> you've been flying for a long time. >> you bet, yep. i can't wait two years. i'm getting too old to wait. >> thanks to a nationwide fund-raising effort, bill launches brand-new smokey balloon in 2005, less than a year after the accident. and in 2009, bill is back in albuquerque to help celebrate smokey bear's 65th anniversary. but no one involved will forget that fateful day in october when a pilot and his passengers were lucky to escape with their lives. >> you know, with ballooning, the takeoff is optional. landing is a must. and so we just had a landing we didn't expect. >>> all of the people we've met in this hour have been changed by their experiences in ways, large and small, and whether they were saved by others or they found a way to save themselves, they feel lucky to be alive. if you have a video you'd like to send to us, logon to our website, caughtoncamera.msnb