The highest number of deaths in a single hot air balloon crash in the country before Saturday was six, in a 1993 accident in Colorado, according to the NTSB. The officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
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“FAA representative Lynn Lunsford said the crash happened around 7:40 a.m. CT near Lockhart, about 30 miles south of Austin”.
Authorities have not released the names of those who were on board and have not said who was flying the balloon. Grosof said it’s likely a crime scene and they want to make sure they do everything correctly with the one shot they have.
“Rather, we issued them as a result of our concern about the operational deficiencies identified in our investigations of accidents involving commercial air tour balloon operations”.
A year before that incident, a hot-air balloon burst into flames and crashed in New Zealand, killing all 11 people on board.
“First I heard a whoosh”, Margaret Wylie, who lives near the crash site, told CNN affiliate TWC.
“It went up like a big fireball”, she told reporters.
“I looked around and it was like a fireball going up”, she said, noting that the fireball was under large power lines and nearly high enough to reach the bottom of them. “And then when I looked back over this way, I saw the fire ball go up”, Margret Wylie said.
She says some baskets can hold up to 20 people.some up to 50 people. She immediately called 911, she said.
Local residents speculated that the balloon had struck a power line that runs prominently across the field.
The National Transportation Safety Board offered no details on what may have caused the accident, which occurred on a clear day.
An investigative team from the safety board was to arrive Saturday, he said, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been asked to help look at the evidence, a normal request after major accidents. Fox News live on Saturday afternoon reports a large-scale investigation into this balloon crash is underway and it is being conducted by several different agencies.
‘The Balloon was occupied and it does not appear at this time that there were any survivors of the crash, ‘ the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
– In 2013, 19 people died in a hot air balloon crash in Egypt, near the ancient city of Luxor.
The land near the crash site is mostly farmland, with corn crops and grazing cattle.
Cutting through that farmland is a row of massive, high-capacity transmission lines, and the site of the crash appears to be right below the overhead lines.
Investigators are working to figure out what caused the crash. A large number of law enforcement personnel is at the scene.
However hot air balloon crashes are rare in the United States.
– Gov. Greg Abbott expressed his condolences to the victims’ families. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, as well as the Lockhart community.
LOCKHART, Texas- A hot air balloon burst into flames over central Texas on Saturday after apparently striking power lines and plunged into a field, killing all 16 people aboard in one of the deadliest such accidents on record, police and eyewitnesses said.
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The Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office said 16 people were believed to have been aboard the doomed craft and that no one survived.
