English: Richard Abruzzo, 47, was a distinguished balloonist. Pictured at the Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum. Son of Ben Abruzzo. Richard and Dr. Carol Rymer Davis won the 2004 Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race and the 2003 America's Challenge Gas Race. Mr Abruzzo was part of a prominent family business in New Mexico involved in real estate and a ski lift enterprise. He went missing early on Wednesday morning September 29 during a thunderstorm, five days after taking off from a site near Bristol, England. He and fellow balloonist Carol Rymer Davis were competing in the 54th Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race, which has attracted the world's top balloonists since 1906, when their gas balloon suddenly vanished over the Adriatic Sea. Richard and his co-pilot were missing until discovered by a fisherman on December 6th, 2010.