Air Balloon Crash in Egypt Killed At Least 19 Tourists (VIDEO)
At least 19 foreign tourists, including British and French citizens, have been killed after a hot air balloon crashed near Luxor in Egypt at dawn today. It appears that only two people may have survived when the balloon came down in a ball of flames after a gas explosion at 1,000ft (300 metres).
Eye-witnesses said there was a fire and a huge bang before the balloon then plunged from the sky and crashed into sugar cane fields west of Luxor.
Tour operator Kuoni has confirmed there were nine Chinese nationals on board the hot air balloon – early reports suggest there were also two British victims, two French tourists and four visitors from Japan.
The authorities have been seen putting corpses into body bags and taking them away in ambulances – so far 14 bodies have been located so far.
A gas explosion caused the crash, EgyNews said.
Hamdy Shabaan, operations manager at another operator, said the basket was on fire when it fell to the ground.
U.S. photographer Christopher Michel was in another balloon behind, taking some aerial shots, when the accident happened.
‘I was in the balloon in front. There were around eight balloons flying that morning,’ he said.
‘I heard a loud explosion behind us and saw lots of smoke.
‘Our pilot said that something like this had not happened for a long time, told us to look forward and we were taken to the ground.
‘I did not see the balloon come down but I would assume it fell.
‘It is a real tragedy and everybody is in a lot of shock.’
Ezzat Saad, the governor of Luxor, told Nile News that the Egyptian pilot of the balloon was in the hospital with 70 percent burns. Mr Saad listed the nationalities of the people on board as from Hong Kong, Japan, Belgium, Britain, France and Egypt. But an employee of the company told AFP news agency operating the balloon the tourists were from Korea, Japan, Britain, and Egypt.
The UK Government could not confirm the number of Britons killed in the crash.
A Foreign Office spokesman: ‘We are aware of the reports and we are making urgent inquiries with the authorities in Egypt.’
General Mamdough Khaled, director of security for Luxor Governate said in a statement Luxor International Hospital received 19 badly burned bodies.
The catastrophe may be the deadliest hot air balloon accident in history – in 1989 13 people were killed when two hot air balloons collided in Australia. Ahmed Aboud, a spokesman for companies that operate balloon flights in the area, said that one torurist and the balloon’s pilot may have survived ‘There were 20 passengers aboard. An explosion happened and 19 passengers died. One tourist and the pilot survived,’ he said.
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