A hot air balloon carrying 16 people caught on fire and crashed in central Texas Saturday — killing everyone on board — in the worst such accident in American history.

The balloon was consumed by a giant fireball before it plummeted to the ground in a remote pasture near Lockhart about 7:30 a.m., authorities and witnesses said.

“It does not appear at this time that there were any survivors of the crash,” the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The Texas Department of Public Safety later confirmed that 16 people were killed.

Hot-air balloon handler falls to death in ‘freak accident’
The balloon went down over farmland that hosts a row of soaring, high-capacity transmission lines reaching about five stories into the sky.

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