In one of the higher chambers on the Tourist Route of the Wieliczka Salt Mine — created at the end of the 19th century and dedicated to the precursor of Polish geological sciences, Stanisław Staszic — an absolutely unique experiment on a global scale took place. On May 6, 2000, six members of the Tarnów Aviation Association (Krzysztof Rękas, Paweł Orłowski, Piotr Słomski, Jacek Czaja, Mirosław Rękas, and Marek Podolus) took on the challenge of breaking an aviation record in the Stanisław Staszic Chamber — 125 meters underground. It is worth adding that the entire operation was prepared over the course of nearly 2 years — that is how long it took to develop the documentation and carry out detailed expert assessments, and the balloon itself was specially modified — it was 14 meters in diameter and 18 meters tall.
The author of one of the studies on the technical feasibility of this experiment, Dr. hab. Kazimierz Lebecki, wrote: “[…] the proposal is so shocking in its uniqueness and originality that from the first encounter it arouses highly controversial opinions, among which the term ‘madness’ is among the mildest. The author of this opinion was not free from such a reaction either. However, a thorough analysis of the undertaking removes all doubts of a technical nature. And one must take into account that the Guinness Book of Records contains all sorts of crazy records. From this point of view, there is no reason to consider an underground balloon flight at a height of several meters a more insane undertaking than standing on one leg for several weeks.” During the attempt, the balloon basket rose to a height of 2 meters and 13 centimeters, and for 4 minutes it hovered in free flight — 125 meters below the surface of the earth! Thus, a world record was set for the launch to free flight from the lowest level, subsequently entered into the Guinness Book of Records.
