How did Kurt Heibert die in the novel, Mayday!?

Kurt died because of a trick the British played on him by flying a decoy balloon filled with explosives and a dummy in uniform in the basket. Kurt saw the balloon as an enemy, thought the dummy was a sentry who was asleep and turned his guns on the hydrogen filled balloon. When he was close enough, the British detonated the basket filled with explosives, damaging his plane. The plane, the Hawk of Macedonia, flew over the Macedonian coastline and disappeared out to sea, believed to have crashed, killing Kurt Heibert.