Hot Air Balloon Crash in Turkey

Nicole Jelinek, Entertainment Editor

Three people people were killed and nearly 23 people were injured on Monday, when two hot air balloons collided in Turkey. A balloon was reported to have collided with another balloon mid-air during a sightseeing  tour of volcanic rock formations there in central Turkey’s Cappadocia region.

In Turkey these tours are a popular thing, so there are questions as to how many balloons are too too many to be launched over Cappadocia at the same time.

The passengers on the balloon were from Brazil, Argentina and Spain according to the governor of Nevsehir province, Abdurrahman Savas. He also stated that the balloon ripped open after colliding with the basket of another balloon and Ahmet Tetikci, a spokesman for the town, told CNN that ‘one balloon struck the other balloon from the top, and the second balloon went down.’

Two of the tourists were killed on impact, and the other was reported to have died later that day in the hospital. Everyone injured were taken to a nearby hospital in Nevsehir and the neighboring Kayseri province.

Surprisingly, these hot air balloon crashed are not uncommon. In Cappadocia, this is the second accident since the tours started nearly a decade ago.

There were other crashes in Egypt in February, when a gas explosion in a balloon caused a balloon to fall from the sky and 19 were killed. Another incident occurred in  March, there was a Balloon that ran into power lines in Miami and injured two people.