Hot air balloon crash in Egypt kills 19 foreigners

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) - A hot air balloon flying over Egypt's ancient city of Luxor caught fire and crashed into a sugar cane field on Tuesday, killing at least 19 foreign tourists, a security official said.

It was one of the worst crashes involving tourists in the country already struggling with a decimated tourism industry, two years after the 2011 uprising that ousted former leader Hosni Mubarak.

According to an Egyptian security official, the balloon carrying 21 tourists caught fire, which triggered an explosion in its gas canister, then plunged at least 300m from the sky.

It crashed into a sugar cane field outside al-Dhabaa village just west of the city of Luxor, 510km south of Cairo, the official said.