Local emergency crews maintained their vigil on the east side of a wheat field Sunday morning, waiting for investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to arrive at the scene of a hot-air balloon crash that claimed at least 16 lives, the worst such disaster in USA history.
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It was the deadliest crash ever involving a hot air balloon in the Western Hemisphere, according to the Balloon Federation of North America. The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.
Matt Rowan, and his wife, Sunday Rowan, both 34, were killed when the balloon caught on fire and crashed in a field Saturday, family said.
Part of the hot air balloon that crashed in Texas hit power lines when it went down, an NTSB spokesman said Sunday after investigators arrived at the accident scene in dusty pastureland south of Austin.
Robert Sumwalt, an NTSB spokesperson said that there is physical evidence that the balloon hit power lines before the crash and is also trying to determine whether fog was a factor. Aerial photos showed burned pasture underneath the power lines.
He offered few details but said they would be looking into whether the operator of the balloon filed a passenger manifest before taking off, because balloons do not usually file flight plans.
“The weather report in the area showed a 500-foot ceiling”.
The pilot at the time of the crash was Alfred “Skip” Nichols, 49, who was also the owner and operator of Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides.
Hersman recommended commercial balloon operators be required to acquire and maintain letters of authorization to hold air tour flights and to give passengers “a similar level of safety oversight as passengers of air tour airplane and helicopter operations”.
Newlyweds Matt and Sunday Rowan, formerly of College Station, were onboard the balloon when it crashed in a pasture around 7:40 a.m., in Maxwell, 30 miles southeast of Austin, according to the Bryan-College Station Eagle newspaper.
He said that Sunday Rowan, who had a young son who wasn’t with them that morning, worked at a clothing store and Matt Rowan was a researcher and scientist at Brooke Army Medical Center.
Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides’ registered address according to the Better Business Bureau is in New Braunfels, between San Antonio and Austin.
The passengers assembled for the ride at 5:45 a.m.in a Walmart parking lot and rode in a van to the launch site, Sumwalt said.
Witnesses who called 911 Saturday reported a fire, and officials responding to the scene Saturday found the gondola had burned.
Philip Bryant, a balloon pilot, told CNN he knew Nichols. The rating is limited to hot air balloons with an airborne heater. That was the world’s deadliest hot air balloon accident in at least 20 years.
A Missouri police officer said Nichols was arrested in 2000 on a felony driving while intoxicated charge and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DWI in 2002. In 2014, the NTSB warned of a catastrophic balloon crash, capable of killing multiple people, if tougher safety provisions weren’t enacted.
Lirette said Nichols went by the first name of Skip.
“That’s the only thing I want to talk about, is that he’s a great pilot”, Lirette said of Nichols. “There’s going to be all kinds of reports out in the press and I want a positive image there too”, he told the Associated Press. Lirette said he helped launch the balloon, which was carrying a total of 16 people, none of them children. “Sunday was a very social person”, Brent Jones said. Nichols brought his balloon into his inspection facility in May 2014 and was issued a one-year recertification, Bryant said.
The balloon ride was Sunday’s birthday gift to matt past year, but it took them a while to schedule it.
Sumwalt said 14 electronic devices were recovered from the crash site, including cellphones, tablets and cameras.
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“First I heard a whoosh”, Margaret Wylie, who lives near the crash site, told CNN affiliate TWC.
