Family and friends of victims killed in Saturday’s hot air balloon crash in Lockhart, Texas- just 30 miles southeast of Austin are being identified.
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Another couple, Joe and Tresa Owens, were also killed in the crash, family friend Tricia James told CNN.
Mr Nichols posted photos on Facebook of himself on other hot air balloon journeys he had completed over the Texas countryside. And she heard a great roar and it scared the cattle next door and they all ran for the barn.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2008 that the Better Business Bureau had warned consumers about doing business with Nichols.
Sumwalt said there needs to be greater oversight of the hot air balloon industry.
The investigation continues into a hot air balloon crash that left 16 dead in Texas.
The tragedy in Texas on Saturday was the deadliest hot air balloon crash in the USA since federal authorities started keeping records.
But authorities began providing more details of the voyage, which began in a San Marcos Wal-Mart parking lot, where customers of Heart of Texas Balloon Rides had gathered before dawn. The paper quoted the BBB as saying Nichols was on probation in Missouri for distribution, delivery or manufacturing a controlled substance and that when asked to respond, Nichols said, “I prefer to make no comment on that”.
– January 31, 1996: Five people died in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland, when their hot air balloon crashed into a mountainside at a height of 8,000 feet (2,400 meters). They said identification of the bodies could be a long process. “Balloon pilots are not required to have an FAA medical”, Cannon says.
The pilot was 49-year-old Skip Nichol.
A Texas hot air balloon business owner who also does inspections says the balloon that crashed, killing 16, had “very good equipment, very new equipment”.
The Federal Aviation Administration might allow a recovering alcoholic to fly commercial jets if the pilot could show that he or she was being successfully treated, said John Gadzinski, an airline captain and aviation safety consultant.
The number of deaths involving hot air balloons has declined in recent years.
He said that he is confident they are the same man based on photographs of Nichols.
“The NTSB concludes that passengers who hire air tour balloon operators should have the benefit of a similar level of safety oversight as passengers of air tour airplane and helicopter operations”, the letter said. She says, “having other people’s lives at stake was Skip’s primary concern”.
The balloon company said in a recorded telephone message that chief pilot and owner Alfred “Skip” Nichols had died in the crash and all flights were canceled.
The agency has been interviewing witnesses and they will talk to the ground crew.
One of the deadliest air balloon disasters on record occurred in Luxor, Egypt, in February 2013 when a balloon caught fire and plunged 1,000 feet to the ground, killing at least 19 foreign tourists.
When pilots apply for a ballooning certificate with the FAA, they are not required to disclose any prior drunken-driving convictions, only drug convictions, said Patrick Cannon, a spokesman for the Balloon Federation of America trade group, who called that a loophole in the law. Depending on sponsorships and pilot availability, there are always 20 to 30 hot air balloon participants each year, with a record of 39 that took place in 2005.
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Lorilee Brabson and her daughter Paige, who moved to Texas from Colorado a few years ago, were celebrating Mother’s Day, according to Paige’s brother Jason Pino, who spoke with a Colorado television station about the accident.
