A hot air balloon caught fire over western Canada, forcing screaming passengers to leap to the ground, some with their clothes in flames, witnesses said. Two people burned to death after being unable to jump from the balloon and 11 were seriously injured, police said Saturday, according to AP. There were 12 passengers and a pilot on board when the balloon crashed Friday evening in a recreational vehicle park in Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, police and witnesses said. All but two of the people on the balloon were initially taken to area hospitals with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Roger Morrow said Saturday they located the two dead after searching the area. Morrow said family of the two dead watched the fire erupt. Morrow declined to comment on reports the dead were a mother and her adult daughter. «It's just tragic. They watched it unfold before their eyes,» Morrow said of the family. «The fatalities suffered from burns.» Witnesses said the balloon caught fire during takeoff and passengers jumped out almost immediately. It then exploded in a fireball and shot up into the air, they said. Shortly after, the burning balloon plunged to ground, leaving a tail of thick black smoke in its wake. «The thing went up about 400 feet 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. Bill Yearwood, an investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said the fire erupted as they prepared to launch. «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. The balloon was tethered at the time, but then broke and came loose. The balloon climbed into the air before collapsing in a residential area in the park,» Yearwood said. «They were all trying to get out. I can't tell you what exactly happened when the balloon was loosened from the tether. We will be talking to attending crew members and the pilot to find out.» Smoke could be seen billowing from the crash site from miles (kilometers) away. The cause of the accident was not immediately known. Weather conditions were clear at the time of the sunset flight. «People were screaming and trying to get out,» Frank Hersey said Friday night near a grassy field where several of the injured were being attended to by ambulance crews. Perry Kendall said he saw what looked like something out of a movie. «It was horrifying,» said a shaken Kendall. «Just looking at people screaming and jumping out of there. Some of them, I think, had fire on their clothes. It was just awful.» Witnesses also 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. Betty Nicholson, a spokeswoman for the Ambulances services, said three passangers had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Nicholson said the more seriously injured have burns and internal bleeding. She was told most of them jumped out before the balloon was engulfed in flames. Randall said at least two vehicles were damaged along with the RVs. He said he ran to his RV and grabbed a small fire extinguisher, but it proved of little use. The hot-air balloon, which CTV reported was operated by Fantasy Balloons Charters based in Langley, British Columbia, was one of several balloons in flight at the time. Company spokesman John K. George said he does not know why the balloon caught fire shortly after takeoff. «The company deeply regrets this evening's incident and all injuries associated with it (and) inconvenience to those people being displaced,» George said. The Transportation Safety Board is investigating. A similar incident occurred earlier this month in the central Canadian province of Manitoba, Manitoba, where 12 people were injured.
