Investigators are focusing on interviewing witnesses, starting Monday with the ground crew. Then they lost contact.
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The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board two years ago recommended greater oversight of the hot air balloon industry, said Robert Sumwalt, who is heading the federal agency’s investigation of the accident.
The company said it had not been in contact with relatives of those killed in the crash as it was being probed by USA investigators.
NPR’s John Burnett, who is at the scene, told our Newscast unit that the balloon “hit some power lines, some very tall power lines in the middle of a sorghum field”.
The balloon was operated by Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides, based in New Braunfels, according to the NTSB.
He said Skip Nichols brought his balloon into his inspection facility in May 2014 and was issued a one-year recertification. No current log book has been found, but it may have been on board the balloon and destroyed in the crash, he said.
The hot air balloon pilot involved in Saturday’s fatal crash in Texas had at least four drunken-driving convictions in Missouri.
The report says the company’s retrieval team had parked its trailer in the balloon’s landing path, causing the pilot to land short to avoid a collision.
She also said she’s grown frustrated that authorities haven’t revealed the identities of the victims in the crash, which is being investigated. He helped pack it up and became a crew member. Mark Dombroff, a former Federal Aviation Administration attorney, said the FAA’s oversight of commercial balloon operations amounts to “essentially none”. The deadliest balloon crash on record killed 19 of the 21 passengers, when a gas canister exploded in the gondola of the balloon, hurtling it 1,000 feet to the ground.
Friends of some of the victims identified them Sunday. They include the pilot, Alfred “Skip” Nichols, and newlyweds Matt and Sunday Rowan.
Sunday was social and had many friends, Jones told CNN. “They have hundreds and hundreds of friends”.
Lorilee Brabson and her daughter Paige were aboard the flight that killed 16 people, including them. The family members of the Rowans were some of the first to confirm the couple was on board – alongside a preschool teacher, her husband and a mother/daughter duo celebrating a belated Mother’s Day – as officials scrambled to notify families, a process made more hard because there was no official participant list to ease the confirmation process, reported the Associated Press. “Soon after takeoff, she stopped all communication”, he said.
“It’s hard, but I want everyone to understand how great our lives were together and how incredible these two people are”. Nichols’ Facebook page identifies himself as the chief pilot of that business, which does not appear to be registered with the state of Texas. They are only required to write a statement certifying that they have “no medical defect” that would limit their ability to pilot a balloon.
Brian and Tressie Neill were also identified as among the passengers who died on Saturday morning.. Neill had worked for the company for nearly 25 years.
The younger man had attempted to join the military but could not meet the physical requirements, she added.
The officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
NTSB investigators recovered 14 personal electronic devices, including cellphones, an iPad and three cameras from the crash site, which will be sent to a lab in Washington for analysis. The NTSB is now leading the investigation, he said.
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.
In a lawsuit filed against Nichols in 2013, a passenger said she was hurt when Nichols crash-landed a balloon in the St. Louis suburbs.
The first 911 call came in at 7:43 a.m., a minute after the first power line tripped.
The company said it has not been in contact with the relatives of those killed in the crash as it is being probed by USA investigators.
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Investigators look over a hot air balloon that crashed in Central Texas on July 30, 2016. But the weekend accident that killed 16 people in Texas is a reminder that ballooning isn’t the safest way to spend an afternoon. Fog, rain, low-lying clouds, and winds surpassing 20 miles per hour could all wreak havoc for hot air balloon flights.
