LOCKHART, Texas (AP) — A team from the National Transportation Safety Board is collecting the last of the wreckage from a hot air balloon that plummeted into a sun-scorched Texas pasture in a crash that killed 16 people.
Medical examiners elsewhere say traces of air-crash victims' remains can be sent to federal labs that perform a variety of tests, including screening pilots for alcohol, but authorities have not said if that will occur this time.
A drunken-driving conviction that occurs within three years of a previous conviction is grounds for suspension or revocation of a pilot's license, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees hot air balloon regulations.
Nichols obtained his hot air balloon pilot's license in Missouri in 1996, went to jail on a drug charge in 2000 and was last convicted of drunken driving in 2010.
The board also wanted to make balloon operators subject to safety inspections, writing: "The potential for a high number of fatalities in a single air tour balloon accident is of particular concern."
The 2013 report by an FAA safety official strongly urged agency officials to impose the same level of oversight to the commercial balloon industry as is applied to airplane and helicopter tour companies.
Philip Bryant, a suburban Houston balloonist who performs inspections of hot air balloons, is worried that the federal government may react to Saturday's crash by severely tightening regulations on pilots and balloon manufacturers more for show than to improve safety.
