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Two killed in balloon fire

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Flames consume motor homes at the Hazelmere trailer park after a hot air
balloon whose basket was engulfed in flames crashed.
Photo: Don
Randall

Latest related coverage

Video Balloon fire

August 26, 2007 - 9:11AM

A hot-air balloon burst into flames over western Canada, burning a woman and
her adult daughter to death while their families looked on. Other passengers
leaped to the ground, some with their clothes in flames, witnesses said.

Eleven passengers were seriously injured when the balloon crashed Friday
evening in a recreational vehicle park near the US border in Surrey, British
Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver. There were 12 passengers and a pilot on board,
police and witnesses said.

John Kageorge, who works for Fantasy Balloon Charters, said the fire started
as the ballon was about to launch and three passengers did not get out of the
basket before it became airborne.

"One person jumped from an unsafe distance, two storeys in the air or more,"
said Kageorge. The mother and daughter did not jump, he said, although two of
their family members made it out of the basket.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt Roger Morrow confirmed the deaths and said
relatives of the two passengers killed witnessed the fire.

"It's just tragic. They watched it unfold before their eyes," Morrow said of
the family. "The fatalities suffered from burns."

The balloon caught fire as it prepared to launch, said Bill Yearwood, an
investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

"The crew loaded 12 passengers and was preparing to launch when a fire
erupted. The pilot asked the passengers to get out of the basket," he said. "The
balloon was tethered at the time, but then broke and came loose," he added.

"They were all trying to get out."

After most of the passengers escaped, the balloon exploded in a fireball and
shot up into the air. Shortly after, the burning balloon plunged to the ground
in the RV park, leaving a tail of thick black smoke in its wake.

Yearwood said the pilot was in stable condition.

"The thing went up about 400 feet (122 metres) in the air, at which point it
melted enough of the balloon - it collapsed," said Don Randall, a resident of
the trailer park who took pictures of the scene. "The basket was basically a
fireball. It just dropped like a stone," he added.

"I'm just thinking, 'Oh geez, I hope there's nobody in that thing. It's
basically a burning death up there,"' he said.

Smoke could be seen billowing from the crash site from kilometres away.

Another resident, Karen Ashby, held back tears while she explained how she
watched the coroner sift through the blackened wreckage.

"They found the bodies in here," Ashby said. "I watched them take them
out."

Weather conditions were clear at the time of the sunset flight.

Witnesses said propane tanks from the balloon shot off and landed on the
Hazelmere RV park below, setting fire to three trailers and several vehicles. No
one was reported hurt in those blazes.

"We're exceptionally lucky that nobody in any of these three trailers or in
the vehicles that were destroyed were caught in them," Morrow said.

The hot-air balloon, operated by Fantasy Balloons Charters based in Langley,
British Columbia, was one of several balloons in flight at the time. The balloon
that burned, Kageorge said, was about nine storeys high.

In a similar accident earlier this month in the central Canadian province of
Manitoba, 12 people were injured.

AP

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Latest related coverage

Video Balloon fire

1188066918971-smh.com.auhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/world/two-killed-in-balloon-fire/2007/08/26/1188066918971.htmlsmh.com.auAAP2007-08-26Two
killed in balloon
fire
World
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/08/26/baloonfire_wideweb__470x322,0.jpg
Flames
consume motor homes at the Hazelmere trailer park after a hot air balloon whose
basket was engulfed in flames
crashed.
470322Don
Randallhttp://media.smh.com.au/?rid=31094video/standard

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