16 feared dead in Texas hot air balloon crash
WASHINGTON/ LOCKHART: Up to 16 people are feared dead after a large hot air balloon caught fire and crashed in central Texas on Saturday, officials said.
No one appeared to survive in the crash, authorities said Saturday.
At least 16 people were on board the balloon, which Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford said caught fire before crashing into a pasture near Lockhart, around 50 km south of Austin, Lynn Lunsford of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
The Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that investigators are determining the number of victims and their identities.
“It does not appear at this time that there were any survivors of the crash,” the sheriff’s office said, which received an emergency call about a possible accident.
“When the Emergency Responders and the Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene, it was apparent that the reported fire was the basket portion of a hot air balloon,” it added in a statement posted on Twitter.
The FAA is investigat- ing, Lunsford said. National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said that his agency’s investigative team should arrive later Saturday. Weiss said the safety agency knows “very, very little right now” about what happened.