10 Biggest Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Disasters

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a spectacular annual event marched by thousands and watched by millions — and a massive undertaking with countless moving parts. Inevitably, mistakes happen, Mother Nature intervenes, and balloons go off the prescribed path through New York City.

After a series of scary mishaps involving wayward balloons, safety measures are now in place for the parade. Two months beforehand, employees of a half-dozen city agencies walk the parade route and note hundreds of hazards to balloons along the way, and then set about neutralizing those threats, according to The New York Times. City officials have also required Macy’s to anchor balloons to vehicles and to install anemometers along the route to monitor wind speed and direction.

Wind is “the one thing we watch closely,” Macy’s employee Kathy Kramer pilot told Vanity Fair in 2014, drawing upon her 15 years of piloting balloons during the parade. “We know how high we are supposed to fly depending on what the wind is. Each balloon has a different matrix that they call the flight matrix. It stipulates how high you can fly depending on the size of the balloon, the volume of helium, and gross weight, and the winds.”

As the following mishaps and misfortunes show, those preparations and calculations are crucial. Ahead of the 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, November 28, here are what we’d consider the 10 biggest disasters from the parade’s history so far.

10. Balloons grounded by weather (1971)

The 1971 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was a subdued affair for attendees since windy conditions meant balloons like Donald Duck, Snoopy, Linus the Lionhearted, and Smokey the Bear had to stay grounded. It was the first time since the helium shortage of World War II that giant balloons weren’t parade participants, as The New York Times reported.

9. Felix the Cat balloon goes up in flames (1931)

In the early days of the parade, balloon handlers just let go of their ropes and left the balloons to the whims of the wind, and Macy’s would offer $50 or $100 rewards for their return. But a Felix the Cat balloon met its demise in 1931 after floating into a high-voltage wire in Norwood, New Jersey. “Mrs. T.J. Peur of that city reported that she saw the silk and rubber feline float gently into the wire and burst into flames,” The New York Times reported at the time.

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8. Mickey Mouse balloon explodes (1983)

“Mickey Mouse is dead,” Ken Maddock, the Macy’s employee who had overseen the balloon for 15 years, told the Times ahead of the 1983 parade. “When the workers unpacked him, they tore his arm off, and when they went to inflate him, he blew up.”

7. Barney balloon stabbed to death (1997)

At the particularly windy 1997 parade, the Barney balloon “had to be removed at 51st Street,” with police officers stabbing the dinosaur with knives after it fell upon its handlers, according to the Times. (“Barney attacked us,” one handler told the newspaper. “Everything turned purple,” another said.)

6. Buzz Lightyear vehicle runs over a woman’s foot (2013)

A Long Island teacher named Keri O’Connell was taken away from the 2013 parade in an ambulance after getting injured in the line of duty. She told the New York Post she was holding a rope for the Buzz Lightyear balloon, and she was struck from behind by a vehicle in the balloon’s entourage. “All of a sudden, I was pulled down, and the car was on my foot,” she said. “I was like ‘Get it off, get it off, get it off!’”

5. Dudley the Dragon balloon injures one (1995)

One person suffered minor injuries at the 1995 parade when a 65-foot-tall Dudley the Dragon balloon hit a lamppost at Columbus Circle, sending glass shards raining down on the crowd below, according to the Daily News.

4. Tom Cat balloon nearly takes down a plane (1932)

After the 1932 parade, 22-year-old flying student Annette Gibson and her flying instructor attempted to snag a 60-foot-long Tom Cat balloon with their biplane. But the balloon put up a fight, wrapping itself around the plane’s left wing and sending the plane plummeting toward the ground. The flying instructor finally gained control and righted the plane 80 feet above Queens rooftops, according to The New York Times.

3. M&Ms balloon injures two (2005)

Chaos broke out at the 2005 parade as a 50-foot-tall M&Ms balloon hit a pole in Times Square and sent a light fixture crashing to the ground, injuring an adult woman and her child sister, the latter of whom needed nine stitches, the Times reported. The father of the injured said that he was glad his daughters weren’t seriously hurt — and that the family planned to be parade spectators again the following year.

2. Sonic the Hedgehog balloon injures two (1993)

Sonic the Hedgehog made a calamitous debut in the 1993 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade as a gust of wind blew the 64-foot balloon into a lamppost at Columbus Circle. The punctured balloon pulled a light fixture off the post, resulting in injuries to two people. A young girl was treated at the scene, and a man was transported to a local hospital with a shoulder injury, according to a WABC-TV report.

1. Cat in the Hat balloon injures four (1997)

In the most serious and most infamous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade incident, a Cat in the Hat balloon knocked a horizontal arm off a lamppost at 72nd Street and Central Park West at the gusty 1997 parade, injuring four people. One 33-year-old woman suffered a head injury and was in a coma for 24 days afterward, according to The New York Times. That woman later sued, seeking $95 million from Macy’s, the city, and the lamppost manufacturer — and an additional $300 million in punitive damages from Macy’s — and the case was settled for an undisclosed sum in 2001.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thursday, November 28, 8:30a/7:30c, NBC & Peacock