The federal safety agency confirms at least 16 people died in the hot air balloon crash in Central Texas.
Robert Sumwalt with the National Transportation Safety Board cautioned Sunday that investigators are still determining how many people were aboard the balloon when it crashed Saturday morning, but that he could confirm at least 16 had died.
That makes it one of the worst hot air balloon crashes in U.S. history.
During the brief news conference in Washington, D.C., Sumwalt said NTSB investigators were just beginning the process of determining what caused the balloon to crash.
He offered few details but said they would be looking into whether the operator of the balloon filed a passenger manifest before taking off, because balloons do not usually file flight plans.
The crash happened Saturday morning in a pasture near Lockhart, which is about 30 miles south of Austin.