THREE DIE AS HOT-AIR BALLOON BURSTS INTO FLAMES

Three people died on Friday morning when the hot-air balloon they were in burst into flames over Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. Shortly after take-off the balloon collided into the tall chimney of a school on the campus of Santiago University, which caused the balloon to burst into flames. The three men on board - Diego Criado del Rey, 36, who was an expert balloon pilot and had flown over the North Pole, Jose Maria Martin Vasquez, 36, and Roberto Rodriguez Rodriguez, 28 - immediately jumped out escape the flames. Witnesses said one man was waving his arms, as if attempting to fly, another was enveloped in flames and the third "fell like lead." The bodies were found within a 100-metre radius of each other. One of them fell onto the roof of the school, where classes continued even though many students were upset by the incident because, as on teacher said, "it was too early for parents to pick up their children". The balloon, which belonged to an aerial advertising company called Globoaccion, had not been authorised to take off, according to a spokesman for Santiago Town Council. Although the balloon carried the logo of this year's Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, the spokesman said it had not been contracted to advertise the event. Jesús González, whose father was a pioneer of ballooning in Spain, said balloons were much safer than they looked. Until last Friday's tragedy, only three people had died in accidents involving balloons in the past ten years.