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Six tourists injured in hot air balloon crash in Sharjah

The hot air balloon went down suddenly in Al Madam desert area, Sharjah Police say

Sharjah: Sharjah Police are investigating a hot air balloon accident that happened on Saturday morning and left six tourists injured.

The hot air balloon went down suddenly in Al Madam desert  area, Sharjah Police said on Monday.

Colonel Ahmad Bin Darwish, director of Sharjah’s Central Region, said: “We’re looking into what happened to determine if any violations occurred.”

The police operations room received a call on Saturday 9am saying that six foreign tourists were injured when a balloon suddenly went down.

The injured were moved to Al Qassimi hospital for treatment .

Some of the worst accidents involving recreational hot air balloons:

- Feb. 26, 2013: A hot air balloon flying over Luxor, Egypt, caught fire and plunged 1,000 feet (300 meters) to the ground, crashing into a sugar cane field and killing at least 19 foreign tourists.

- Aug. 23, 2012: Six people died and 26 were injured when a hot air balloon carrying 32 people, mostly tourists including some children, caught fire and crashed near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana.

- Jan. 07, 2012: A hot air balloon struck power lines near Carterton, New Zealand, and exploded, crashing to the ground. All 11 people on board were killed.

- Oct. 14, 2009: Four Dutch tourists were killed in Guangxi, China, after pilots lost control and their hot air balloon burst into flames and crashed.

- Aug. 26, 2001: Six people including a child were killed when their hot air balloon touched a power line at Verrens-Arvey, in southwesternFrance.

- June 17, 1999: Four passengers were killed when their hot air balloon hit a power line near Ibbenburen, Germany.

- Jan. 31, 1996: Five people died in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland, when their hot air balloon crashed into a mountainside at a height of 8,000 feet (2,400 meters).

- Aug. 8, 1993: Six people were killed when their balloon hit a power line near Aspen, Colorado, tearing off the basket and sending it plunging 100 feet (30 meters) to the ground.

- Dec. 11, 1990: Four people died near downtown Columbus, Ohio, after their hot air balloon hit a television tower and deflated.

- Oct. 6, 1990: Four people were killed in a balloon crash at Gaenserndorf, near Vienna.

- Aug. 13, 1989: Thirteen people were killed when their hot air balloon collided with another over the Australian outback near the town of Alice Springs. The two balloons were flying at an altitude of 2,000 feet (600 meters) when one plunged to the ground after the collision.

- Oct. 3, 1982: An explosion on board a hot air balloon carrying nine people at a festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico, killed four people and injured five.

- Aug. 6, 1981: Five people were killed and one seriously injured when a hot air balloon caught fire after touching electrical wires and crashed in a suburb of Chicago.

- 1785: Two Frenchmen attempting to cross the English Channel in a hot-air balloon were killed when their balloon caught fire and crashed, in possibly the first fatal aviation accident.