DEFLATED but not dejected was how adventurer David Hempleman-Adams described himself after his ill-fated bid to cross the Atlantic in a wicker basket balloon.

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Advertiser the 45-year-old Swindon-born explorer said he was ready to begin preparations for a second attempt at becoming the first man to fly solo in a traditional balloon 3,337-miles across the Atlantic travelling west to east.

Barely 24-hours after taking off from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, last week, the autopilot on his five-tonne Roziere-class balloon failed him.

He had covered around 400 miles when a call from the Chase de Vere Atlantic Challenge control room in Bath told David to ditch the balloon just 15 miles from the Atlantic.

"I said to them that I was thinking of having a crack at crossing the Atlantic without the autopilot and they told me to grow up," said David.

"You could probably fly the balloon for three days, but there is no way you cross the Atlantic and keep awake for six days without the autopilot.

"I'm really disappointed because everything had gone so well up to that point."

So well in fact that David had whistled along to spitting distance of the Atlantic.

One of the two burners in the balloon inexplicably froze before the same autopilot system David used to become the first man to fly to the North Pole in 2000, packed up.

He said: "I was surprised because all the equipment had been serviced and was working so well up to that point.

"I was scrambling around in the balloon flicking through the manual trying everything to get it working again. I crosschecked everything including the fuse, but it still wouldn't engage. It was midnight when I knew I had to ditch.

"I had to find minimum speed or I knew I would be in the Atlantic."

For several miles David's balloon was chased by the emergency services and scores of news crews following the story live.

He was even more bemused at the way locals were shining spotlights at his low-flying craft.

"I was doing about 20 knots, which is a hell of a speed, skimming the top of trees then I suddenly heard all these sirens chasing me it was like the Keystone Cops.

"I hit the tope of a maple tree and stopped dead in my tracks and hit the ground with an almighty thud," David said.

"Remarkably nothing was stolen, even the donuts that I took came back with me that wouldn't have happened if I had ditched in France or Spain."

Bizarrely the field in which David crash-landed in Hebron, Connecticut, belonged to the mother of the man whose hangar the team used to store the balloon in Pittsburgh.

"The only thing that was damaged was my pride. I'm definitely going to attempt the flight again because there is still plenty of life in the old dog and the challenge is there for the taking."