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Mr. Levin on a balloon ride. He was in law school in 1975 when he went up in a hot-air balloon and changed the course of his life.
Roberta Levin, thumbnail, Steve Snowden/Getty Images, 2005
David Levin
Died on May 13, 2017 at age 68
In the 10 years after stepping into a balloon basket for the first time, David became the first balloonist to soar over Pikes Peak in Colorado and won the 1985 World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Battle Creek, Mich. But best was yet to come. In 1992, by winning the World Gas Balloon Championship in Obertraun, Austria, he became the only pilot to capture world championships in hot-air and gas balloons. Later that year, he completed ballooning’s triple crown when he won the Gordon Bennett Cup in Stuttgart, Germany, a distance event in which he flew a little more than 964 miles in 44½ hours.
Notable Deaths 2017
Remembering Mary Tyler Moore, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, David Rockefeller, Trisha Brown, Glen Campbell, Dick Gregory, Edith Windsor, Sam Shepard, Tom Petty and many others who died this year.