Adelir de Carli

Adelir Antônio de Carli (8 February 1967 – between 20 April 2008 and 4 July 2008), also known as or , was a Brazilian Catholic priest who died after a cluster-ballooning attempt on 20 April 2008. Carli undertook the exercise to raise money to fund a spiritual rest area for truck drivers in the port city of Paranaguá.

Biography Adelir Antônio de Carli was born on 8 February 1967. He was the third child of Salete Gundalin and Aurélio de Carli, and had three siblings. His parents divorced when he was four years old. He lived with his mother in Paraguay until her death due to a throat tumor when he was fifteen years old, after which he returned to Brazil to live with his father. Carli worked as a tire repairman with him and later as a gas station attendant at his uncle's gas station, while also painting tablecloths as a side job. He was described as a quiet and humble person, and was an excellent student. Carli unexpectedly joined a seminary in Paranaguá, being ordained in August 2003. He worked in Ampére before being appointed as the head of the – a parish in Paranaguá – in 2004. These denunciations led to the arrest of seven Municipal Guard agents and the municipal security secretary. That same year, Carli successfully prevented the forced removal of several small diners from the port patio by staging a protest against the port managers. Six months before the flight, he had enrolled in a paragliding course in Curitiba. Carli refused to attend the theory classes, and after two incidents where he disobeyed his instructor, he was expelled from the school. His first attempt was on 13 January 2008, during which he successfully completed a four-hour flight from Ampére, Paraná, Brazil, to San Antonio, Misiones, Argentina, over a total distance of . Using 600 balloons, he reportedly reached heights of . Two days after the flight, a Penha fire department commander familiar with the situation put Carli's chances of still being alive at 80 per cent. The Brazilian Navy called off the ocean search on 29 April, saying the chances of finding Carli alive in the ocean were "very remote". Pieces of balloon were later reported floating in the sea off the coast.

On 4 July, the lower half of a human body was found floating on the ocean surface by an offshore oil rig support vessel about from Macaé. The remains were initially identified as Carli's from the clothing, later confirmed by DNA tests on 29 July after comparison with samples provided by Carli's brother. Carli's remains were taken to Paranaguá, and were received with a round of applause from churchgoers. A mass was held in his honor, and he was later buried in a special chapel in Ampére.