Egyptian authorities on Monday suspended hot air balloon flights over the pharaonic sites of Luxor, one of the most touristic cities in the south of the country, after an accident which left “only two minor injuries”.
“While a group of hot air balloons were in flight, one of them collided with another at 60 meters altitude with a wind blowing at nearly 13 km per hour”, explains the Authority of the ‘civil Aviation.
One of the two hot air balloons was rushed to the ground, “out of 28 passengers, two were slightly injured and transferred to hospital to be examined”, continues the Authority.
A team of investigators has been dispatched to the scene and no more hot air balloons are authorized to take off before they render their conclusions, she adds.
Previous accidents
In 2013, also in Luxor, 19 tourists died in the explosion of a hot air balloon, then in 2018, a tourist died in another balloon accident.
Egypt, caught between inflation and devaluation, relies heavily on its tourism, which is just beginning to recover from ten years of political turmoil, since the ‘revolution’ which overthrew autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19.
The summer season this year has already been bereaved by the death of two tourists, an Austrian and a Romanian, killed by a shark near Hurghada on the Red Sea, which welcomes 65% of tourists visiting the country.
/ATS