[2][4] Gatch intended to fly the Atlantic (solo) from Harrisburg Airport, Pennsylvania, to somewhere in Western Europe in a little over two days.
[2] For the next sixteen hours Gatch maintained radio contact with passing airliners[4] (at least two of which were diverted to avoid his craft).
Light Heart continued to drift southwards out of the main transatlantic airways, far south of Gatch's plotted course.
At that point, the balloon was at an altitude of about 305 m (1000 ft), approximately 1,610 km (1,000 miles) west of the Canary Islands and drifting towards Africa.
[2][4] Notwithstanding this (or conjectures that the balloon might have landed in the Spanish Sahara) no confirmed trace of Light Heart or Gatch was ever found, after the Ore Meridian's reported sighting on 21 February.