Egypt Hot Air Balloon Crash Death Toll Rises to 19

A hot air balloon flying over Egypt’s ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists in one of the world’s deadliest ballooning accidents and handing a new blow to Egypt’s ailing tourism industry.

The casualties included French, British, Belgian, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong, Luxor Governor Ezzat Saad told reporters. Three survivors – two British tourists and the Egyptian pilots – were taken to a local hospital, but one of the Britons later died of injuries.

Egypt’s civil aviation minister, Wael el-Maadawi, suspended hot air balloon flights and flew to Luxor to lead the investigation into the crash.

The balloon, which was carrying 20 tourists and a pilot, was landing after a flight over the southern town, when a landing cable got caught around a helium tube and a fire erupted, according to an investigator with the state prosecutor’s office.

The balloon then shot up in the air, the investigator said. The fire set off an explosion of a gas canister and the balloon plunged some 300 meters (1,000 feet) to the ground, according to an Egyptian security official. It crashed in a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of Luxor, 510 kilometers (320 miles) south of Cairo, the official said.

The official and the investigator spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Bodies of the dead tourists were scattered across the field around the remnants of the balloon. An Associated Press reporter at the crash site counted eight bodies as they were put into body bags and taken away. The security official said all 18 bodies have been recovered.

Hot air ballooning is a popular pastime for tourists in Luxor, usually at sunrise to give a dramatic view over the pharaonic temples of Karnak and Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, a desert valley where many pharaoh, notably King Tutenkhamun, were buried.

Luxor has seen crashes in the past. In 2009, 16 tourists were injured when their balloon struck a cellphone transmission tower. A year earlier, seven tourists were injured in a similar crash.

The toll puts the crash among the deadliest involving a recreation hot air balloon. In 1989, 13 people were killed when their hot air balloon collided with another over the Australian outback near the town of Alice Springs.

Among the dead Tuesday was a Japanese couple in their 60s, among four Japanese who were killed, according to the head of Japan Travel Bureau’s Egypt branch, Atsushi Imaeda.

In Hong Kong, a travel agency said nine of the tourists that were aboard the balloon were natives of the semiautonomous Chinese city. There was a “very big chance that all nine have perished,” said Raymond Ng, a spokesman for the agency. The nine, he said, included five women and four men from three families.

They were traveling with six other Hong Kong residents on a 10-day tour of Egypt.

Ng said an escort of the nine tourists watched the balloon from the ground catching fire around 7 a.m. and plunging to the ground two minutes later.

In Britain, tour operator Thomas Cook confirmed that two British tourists were killed in the crash, and a third later died in the hospital. Another British survivor and the Egyptian pilot, who state media said had severe burns, were being treated in the hospital.

“What happened in Luxor this morning is a terrible tragedy and the thoughts of everyone in Thomas Cook are with our guests, their family and friends,” said Peter Fankhauser, CEO of Thomas Cook UK & Continental Europe. He said the firm is providing “full support” to the victims’ families.

In Paris, a diplomatic official said French tourists were among those involved in the accident, but would give no details on how many, or whether French citizens were among those killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to be publicly named according to government policy. French media reports said two French tourists were among the dead but the official wouldn’t confirm that.

Egypt’s tourism industry has been decimated since the 2011 uprising and the political turmoil that followed and continues to this day. Luxor’s hotels are currently about 25 percent full in what is supposed to be the peak of the winter season.

Scared off by the turmoil and tenuous security following the uprising, the number of tourists coming to Egypt fell to 9.8 million in 2011 from 14.7 million the year before, and revenues plunged 30 percent to $8.8 billion.

Magda Fawzi, whose company operates four luxury Nile River cruise boats to Luxor, said she expects the accident will lead to tourist cancellations. Tour guide Hadi Salama said he expects Tuesday’s accident to hurt the eight hot air balloon companies operating in Luxor, but that it may not directly affect tourism to the Nile Valley city.

Poverty swelled at the country’s fastest rate in Luxor, which is highly dependent on visitors to its monumental temples and the tombs of King Tutankhamun and other pharaohs. In 2011, 39 percent of its population lived on less than $1 a day, compared to 18 percent in 2009, according to government figures.

In August, Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi flew to Luxor to encourage tourism there, about a month after he took office and vowed that Egypt was safe for tourists.

“Egypt is safer than before, and is open for all,” he said in remarks carried by the official MENA news agency at the time. He was referring to the security situation following the 2011 ouster of autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak.

Deadly accidents caused by poor management and a decrepit infrastructure have taken place since Morsi took office. In January, 19 Egyptian conscripts died when their rickety train jumped the track. In November, 49 kindergarteners were killed when their school bus crashed into a speeding train because the railway guard failed to close the crossing.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful political force and Morsi’s base of support, blames accidents on a culture of negligence fostered by Mubarak.

(Associated Press writers Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Jill Lawless in London and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.)