Egyptian hot-air balloon pilots have “very weak” training that is “inappropriate to best practice”, a British balloon expert, who advises the country’s government on safety in the sector, has warned.
The warning comes a day after 19 tourists, including three British residents, died in a balloon crash in Luxor, in one of worst balloon accidents in living memory.
Phil Dunnington, chair of the British Balloon and Airship Club, has visitedEgypt eight times in the past six years to assess Egyptian balloonists at the request of the government.
He said the Egyptian authorities did not regularly assess local pilots’ skills, and that examiners were often not balloon experts.
Tourists from at least five countries were killed early on Tuesday morning as a hot-air balloon carrying them on a dawn cruise near Luxor crashed in flames onto a sugarcane field.
One of the only survivors Michael Rennie, a Briton, was discharged from hospital on Wednesday.
The dead included Joe Bampton, 40, a British antiques dealer, and his Hungarian girlfriend, Suzanna Gyetvai, 34, and Yvonne Rennie, a receptionist from Perth. Rennie’s husband, Michael, who jumped from the burning balloon as it came into land, was one of only two people, along with the pilot, Momin Mourad Ali, to escape death.
Dunnington said of ballooning tuition in Egypt: “It’s a very weak system. It’s inappropriate to best practice.” He acknowledged that there were nevertheless balloon companies in Egypt that operated to very high standards.
He added: “One of the difficulties in Egypt is that there’s no independent and objective assessment of pilot’s ongoing skills. Their pilots have to do an annual test flight but they do it with someone from their own company, with someone from the Civil Aviation Authority present who has not necessarily got any expertise in balloon-specific flying. The CAA person is not there to judge the pilot. They just register that the test flight has taken place.”
Several of the crash victims were Thomas Cook customers. The travel company was criticised for not changing balloon operators after an earlier crash involving the same operator, in 2011.
Another balloon belonging to Sky Cruises, the operator used by Thomas Cook since 2004, crashed into the Nile in October 2011. No one was killed on that occasion, but the balloon hit a boat and was left floating on the river. Passengers suffered bruising.
While the pilot involved in the 2011 crash no longer works for Sky Cruises, the company remained the preferred carrier for Blue Sky travel agents, and by extension Thomas Cook, whom they represent in Egypt.
But Thomas Cook said it was up to the Egyptian civil aviation authority to judge the suitability of balloon operators.
“We, like all other major tour operators, rely upon this endorsement by the Egyptian civil aviation authority, and it is reasonable for us to do so as we rely on their expertise,” the company said in a statement.
Thomas Cook’s local representative, Blue Sky travel agents, denied it should have switched carriers after the 2011 incident.
“We [were] worried, of course,” said Kamal el-Kordy, Blue Sky’s upper Egypt area manager. “But we have to follow the rules. They [Sky Cruises] have all the documents from all the civil aviation control. What can we do? We are not engineers and they have all the paperwork according to the law.”
According to paperwork seen by the Guardian the crashed balloon was authorised for use by Egypt’s civil aviation authority until October 2013.
Sky Cruises is not the only company to have been involved in crashes in recent years.
In April 2009, 16 people were hurt, including two British women, when a balloon crashed during a tour of Luxor.
The balloon was believed to have hit a mobile phone transmission tower near the banks of the Nile. After the crash, early morning hot air balloon flights over the Valley of the Kings were suspended for six months while safety measures were tightened up.
There were at least four other non-fatal crashes that year involving tourists, including three on one day, and there were also crashes in 2007 and 2008.
As state investigators ruled out foul play as a cause for this week’s tragedy, local politicians and police officers visited the crash site to lay flowers in memory of those who died.
Across town tourists who witnessed the crash were still struggling to come to terms with what had happened.
“I spent the whole day in tears yesterday,” said Tristram Mitchell, a 40-year-old tourist from Devon, who witnessed what happened from a balloon flying 100 metres from the crash, and who has decided to extend his stay in Luxor to show solidarity with his hosts. “It was horrific.”
James Massie, a 37-year-old anthropologist from Connecticut, in the US, was standing next to Mitchell as they saw the balloon catch fire. “There was initial disbelief,” he said. “The flames seemed larger than expected.”
As they saw passengers jumping from the balloon, people started to fear for their own safety. “I imagined myself in that balloon,” said Massie. “I started worrying about how we were going to get down.”
Mohamed Youssef, who was flying the balloon near the one that crashed, said: “The people in my balloon started to cry. They started to shout. I said, don’t worry, we will land soon, it will be OK. They were very worried.”
Representatives of Sky Cruises would not speculate on the causes of the crash. “The [state investigation] committee is the one that’s going to decide on what happened. They’ve taken the witness statements and they will decide. The fate is with god,” said Captain Hany Salah, Sky Cruise’s operations manager.
But the company’s general manager, Khalid Khatifah, said it was painful to watch footage of the crash obtained on Wednesday by the Guardian. “It was painful. I can’t describe my feelings. The spirit comes out of my body at this sight.”
Meanwhile, other balloon operators in Luxor were left fearing for their industry. Aviation authorities suspended all balloon activities following the crash, prompting fears that more permanent measures might follow, crippling an industry upon which, residents say, about 1,000 residents relied on for their livelihoods.
“We’re worried about our business,” said Alaa Mahmoud, sales manager for Magic Horizon, a balloon line, which once attracted the custom of Melvyn Bragg, whose photograph is framed in Mahmoud’s office.
“We follow the rules and regulations, but over 1,000 people will starve if the balloon business in Egypt is stopped. If they stop the balloons, what are they going to do?”
Tourism in Egypt is already floundering in the country following two years of political unrest; it has fallen 22% since 2010.
The Guardian
