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News of Rosemary Wooley Phillips' death sent a ripple through the entire hot-air ballooning community.

The fatal incident involving the 60-year-old California woman, who fell from a balloon gondola Monday, is ever-present in their minds, said several pilots at a safety seminar put on Tuesday by the Albuquerque Aerostat Ascension Association.

"It shakes us all, big time," said Don Bragg, a pilot on the group's educational committee. "We all think, `There but for the grace of God go I.' I was flying nearby on the same day."

The seminar was scheduled months in advance and wasn't a reaction to Monday's crash, or to hard landings earlier Tuesday in which nine passengers were injured. About 300 pilots attended.

The fatality -- the fiesta's first since 1992 -- probably won't change existing safety procedures much, though it does make everyone a bit more wary, said Clare Wade-Callihan, another Quad-A pilot.

"Something like this is always a wake-up call," Wade-Callihan said. "I remember one pilot told me, `If you don't have butterflies in your stomach or dry mouth when you're ready to inflate, there's something wrong.' That's true."

Pilots will probably have to wait quite a while to find out what exactly went wrong in the accident that killed Phillips.

Investigators will have to prepare a detailed reconstruction of the event and look for any pilots who witnessed it - rather than hear from people who don't know about ballooning, said Tom McConnell, who is on Quad-A's board.

"It's very sad," McConnell said. "We're constantly trying to make things safer - constantly. Every once in a while, though, somebody screws up. We don't know if the pilot of that crash screwed up or not - he was very experienced - but we'll find out."

McConnell sighed.

"Sometimes there's not a damned thing the pilot could have done," he said.

Everybody who flies understands the risks - especially of broken bones or twisted ankles during hard landings, when the balloon hits the ground fast because of high wind, said Wade-Callihan.

It's up to both the pilot and passenger to decide if they're willing to take those risks, she said.

"I have taken my balloon down sometimes when a couple little things have gone wrong," Wade-Callihan said. "When little things go wrong, if I don't feel comfortable, I'm not going to fly. It's up to the individual."

Landing a balloon is never easy - especially if it's windy, which is something she always keeps in mind, Wade-Callihan said.

"There's little time to react," Wade-Callihan said. "It's sort of like trying to park an eight-story building."

Hard landings - like the four on Tuesday in which nine people required medical attention - are something pilots practice and often do on purpose. It's safer to do a hard landing when it's windy than to try to set down slowly and get blown around, Bragg said.

"People twist their ankles, bang their knees," Bragg said. "It's part of ballooning."

The landings involving injuries occurred in Rio Rancho, where surface winds appeared to have played a role.

Around 8:30 a.m., a 49-year-old New Jersey woman suffered a possible fractured hip or leg after the balloon in which she was riding struck a retaining wall while landing.

Around the same time, a balloon hit the ground in an attempt to land, ejecting two women from the basket, including one who is six-months pregnant.

Two other people in the gondola suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospitals after the balloon struck a house and knocked a swamp cooler off the roof before landing, said Rio Rancho police Sgt. Rich Misbach.

The third incident occurred when a balloon came down hard near the Rio Rancho High School football field. A man was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, Rio Rancho police said.

In the forth incident, around 9:30 a.m., a man and two women were taken to local hospitals after suffering possible leg and neck injuries in a hard landing.

Utility lines - like the one Phillips' balloon became tangled in - are also part of the sport, he added.

"You're going to have issues anywhere you fly," Bragg said. "If you're in the country, you have places without roads; you have long fences. In the city, you have power lines. Everything presents its own complexity."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.