Balloon Pilots Surpass Duration Record

LOS ANGELES -- The pilots behind the Two Eagles Balloon flight over the Pacific Ocean have done it -- surpassing the distance record for gas balloons of 5,209 miles.

The flight bested the absolute world record for time aloft for gas balloons of 137 hours, 5 minutes and 50 seconds.

American Troy Bradley and Russian Leonid Tiukhtyaev passed the final milestone on their checklist of world records that had originally been set by Double Eagle II on its transatlantic flight in 1978.

On Thursday, the Two Eagles team tweeted: "The pilots have just surpassed the distance needed to set a new record. 5,261 miles or 8,467km."

Although the two pilots surpassed the mark for duration of gas balloons, the record has not been officially broken. This will determined by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association and FAI after a long process of documentation and review that can take up to several weeks, or even months.

At this point in their journey, the final and most important goal for the Two Eagles pilots is to land the balloon safely.

Bradley and Tiukhtyaev are approximately 400 miles west of the Mexican border as they are flying parallel to the west coast of the United States. They are expected to land Saturday on the Baja peninsula in Mexico.