{"id":34580,"date":"2013-02-26T11:26:25","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T09:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=34580"},"modified":"2013-02-26T11:26:25","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T09:26:25","slug":"egypt-balloon-crash19-tourists-dead-in-luxor-hot-air-balloon-crash-breaking-news-34580","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/egypt-balloon-crash19-tourists-dead-in-luxor-hot-air-balloon-crash-breaking-news-34580\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt Balloon Crash:19 Tourists dead in Luxor hot air balloon crash \/ Breaking News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

A hot air balloon has crashed near the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor, killing 19 foreign tourists.<\/h1>\n

The balloon was carrying 21 people at the time and was flying at a height of 1000 feet over Qurna, in Luxor’s West Bank.<\/p>\n

An Egyptian security official says there was a fire and an explosion on-board the balloon, which fell to the ground and crashed into sugar cane fields.<\/p>\n

The casualties are believed to include British, French, Japanese, Korean and other foreign nationals.<\/p>\n

Two survivors from the crash, including the balloon’s pilot, have been taken to hospital.<\/p>\n

Witness Christopher Michel was travelling in one of several balloons in the air above Luxor early on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

He told \u00a0“I was in one of about eight balloons that were flying that morning.<\/p>\n

“We were approaching landing … coming down in a remote field just outside of Luxor.<\/p>\n

“We heard a loud explosion behind us, and I looked back and saw lots of smoke.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t immediately clear that it was a balloon. We were surrounded by the balloons that had been flying with us.<\/p>\n

“Then we could see the reaction of the pilot on the balloon and he said that this hasn’t happened in a long time.”<\/p>\n

Hot air ballooning is popular with tourists who go to Luxor to visit its ancient temples and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.<\/p>\n

But the activity is not without its dangers. In April 2009, 16 people were hurt – including two British women – when a balloon crashed during a tour of Luxor.<\/p>\n

The balloon was believed to have hit a mobile phone transmission tower near the banks of the Nile.<\/p>\n

Following the 2009 crash, early morning hot air balloon flights over the Valley of the Kings were suspended for six months while safety measures were tightened up.<\/p>\n

During the break, all 42 pilots from the eight companies who operate flights had extra training.<\/p>\n

A notice on the Foreign Office website warns tourists that: “There were three serious hot air balloon accidents in Luxor in 2009.<\/p>\n

“You should consider the operator’s safety arrangements carefully.”<\/p>\n

Egypt’s tourism industry has suffered a sharp downturn in visitor numbers since the 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, with two years of political instability scaring off foreign tourists.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hot air balloon has crashed near the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor, killing 19 foreign tourists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,80,63,17,1,118,37,14],"tags":[46678,46681,10772,46683,46685,77166,46686,1288,46675,46677,46674,46672,46687,46680,46679,46682,46688,46684,46689,46676,46673,46690,46691],"class_list":["post-34580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-middle-east","category-world","tag-19-dead-luxor-balloon-crash","tag-19-tourists-dead-luxor-balloon-crash","tag-accident","tag-ancient-egyptian-city-luxor","tag-balloon-crashed-near-luxor-tourists-killing","tag-breaking-news","tag-british-tourists-dead-luxor","tag-egypt","tag-egypt-balloon-crash","tag-egypt-balloon-crash-19-dead","tag-egypt-luxor","tag-egypt-tourists-dead","tag-french-tourists-dead-luxor","tag-hot-air-balloon-crash-egypt","tag-hot-air-balloon-crash-luxor","tag-hot-air-balloon-crashed-luxor","tag-japanese-tourists-dead-luxor","tag-killing-19-foreign-tourists","tag-killing-19-tourists","tag-luxor-balloon-crash","tag-luxor-egypt","tag-qurna-balloon-crash","tag-valley-of-the-kings-balloon-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}