Gathering other evidence would be a sort of race against time he said, since investigators were delayed by weather in getting to the site, and most physical evidence will be tarnished within days, Sumwalt said.
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Sixteen people died after the hot air balloon they were riding in caught fire and crashed in central Texas Saturday morning, according to authorities.
“The popping sound was the balloon connecting with the electric lines and then by the time I turned and saw the fireball go up, the basket was on the ground”, witness Margaret Wylie said. There were no survivors. “They have hundreds and hundreds of friends”.
Matt Rowan and his wife, Sunday Rowan, were among those on board, his brother Josh Rowan said. “Soon after takeoff, she stopped all communication”, he said. Alan Lirette told The Associated Press that his roommate and co-worker Skip Nichols piloted the balloon.
The crash happened Saturday morning in a pasture near Lockhart, which is about 30 miles south of Austin.
Invetigators examine the scene of the hot air balloon crash in Maxwell, Texas. The Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it didn’t look like anyone survived. Lirette said there didn’t appear to be any children on board.
In a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta in April 2014, the National Transportation Safety Board urged the FAA to require tour companies to get agency permission to operate, and to make balloon operators subject to FAA safety inspections.
Lirette said Nichols went by the first name of Skip.
“I knew him to be a safe, competent pilot”, Bryant said.
The crash and ensuing fire took place near – or possibly under – high-capacity power lines. The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.
“We’ve heard of (crash) incidents before”, Sam Wiley said.
Previously, the country’s deadliest hot air balloon crash was a 1993 accident in Colorado that killed six people.
“Yesterday, the beloved mother of my daughter, Paige Brabson and her mother, Lorilee Brabson, both passed away in a tragic hot air balloon accident”, Monterrosa wrote.
Matt Rowan sent a text message to a friend on his volleyball team Friday night saying he’d be late to a tournament because he was taking a hot air balloon ride that he didn’t expect would interfere with the game because it had “been rescheduled a dozen times”. Sumwalt reiterated the NTSB’s call on the FAA for stricter regulations for balloon operators. The company’s website states the flights usually take about an hour and the company takes off with two hours of fuel plus a 30-minute reserve of fuel. The NTSB investigated 760 such accidents between 1964 and 2013.
“The FAA has not responded in an affirmative way”, she told CNN’s Sara Ganim on Saturday.
The FAA rejected those recommendations, Sumwalt said, and the NTSB classified the FAA’s response as “open-unacceptable”.
He says, “They were really happy and they were in love and they were really starting a life together”.
“Depending on gondola capacity, balloons can carry more than 20 passengers per flight”.
Robert Sumwalt, who will head the NTSB’s crash investigation team, said he was studying the board’s recommendations to the FAA based on previous hot air balloon crashes.
Warning about potential high-fatality accidents, safety investigators recommended two years ago that the Federal Aviation Administration impose greater oversight on commercial hot air balloon operators, government documents show.
The NTSB argued the letters of authorization would allow for competency checks including pilot certification, safety checklists, and proper flight operation procedures.
“The investigation into the cause of this tragic accident will continue, and I ask all of Texas to join us in praying for those lost”.
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Speaking to the AP from a house he shared with Nichols in Kyle, Lirette would not answer specific questions about the balloon’s launch or its crash.
