London physicist killed in hot-air balloon accident

A London academic has been killed in a ballooning accident in Turkey.

Kevin Beurle is believed to have died when the balloon plummeted more than 200ft to the ground after colliding with another balloon during a dawn flight.

The 53-year-old was with a friend, Juliet Boas, also from London, who is thought to be among nine Britons injured during the flight over the Cappadocia volcanoes in central Turkey.

Mr Beurle, from Streatham, in south west London, worked at Queen Mary University on the Cassini spacecraft project that orbits Saturn.

Colleagues at the university told the Standard they had been contacted by several people trying to ascertain the academic's whereabouts.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the dawn crash but officials suspect the balloon started dropping towards the volcano chimneys' after colliding with another tourist flight.

There are several companies that operate flights in the region and excursions that capture daybreak are particularly popular with foreign tourists. Officials from the British embassy in Ankara left for the crash site at about 10am today.

They were due to meet emergency workers at 11am and to provide consular assistance to the surviving British tourists. Those that were rescued were taken to a nearby hospital suffering from injuries including broken bones.

Footage from a Turkish television news station showed several tourists lying on stretchers in the corridors of the hospital.

A worker at a rival balloon company said: "I have just heard about the accident. We knew that some people had been taken to hospital but didn't realise that someone had died. I don't know that much more about it."

The worker and several others named the company as Kapadokya Balloons, which claims to be the oldest balloon flights company in the Cappadocia region.

Governor Asim Hacimustafaoglu told the Dogan News Agency said that the balloon went down at about 3am, plummeting 200 metres shortly after taking off from a site close to Zelve village.

It was said that the British operator of the balloon was also injured in the accident.

Mayor Nuri Cingil told AP the balloon was owned and operated by a British company. The group was travelling with tour operator Explore.

Staff from the company which is based in Farnborough, Hampshire, are flying to meet the group. Its managing director Ashley Toft said: "We are of course looking after those involved and liaising with their families and with those of other clients who were on this optional excursion.

"We are shocked that such a popular activity should have resulted in such a tragic outcome. All we can say at this time is that one person very sadly died and that another is in a critical condition, with multiple injuries."

Explore said it had used the same balloon operator in Turkey for 10 years without incident.

The accident follows a hot-air balloon crash in Luxor, Egypt last month in which two British women were injured.