Emergency services are responding to an accident in Carterton, north of Wellington, involving a hot air balloon, with 11 people killed.
The balloon was operated by Early Morning Balloons and was carrying one pilot with 10 passengers.
The balloon caught fire and came down on Somerset Rd at Clareville near Carterton at around 7.30 this morning.
Witnesses say the balloon came down in flames, hitting a power pole near the Clareville showgrounds and knocking out power to parts of Carterton.
The pilot of the balloon was local truancy officer Lance Hopping, who was an experienced pilot with more than 1000 hours of commercial flying.
Somerset resident Jane Giles told RadioLIVE this morning she was shocked by the sight.
“I saw the balloon up in the air. As usual I stood there and admired it,” she says.
“I went back inside and the next time I looked out there was just a plume of smoke down the end of the road.”
Local resident David McKinlay said he was watering the garden of his home on the northern boundary of Carterton at 7.40am when he looked up toward the northeast.
"I just couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said.
"There were flames licking up the basket on one side, up towards the guy ropes of the balloon itself and probably just about reaching the fabric of the balloon," he told NZ Newswire.
Mr McKinlay ran inside to alert emergency services.
"When I got back out I could just see the mass of flame where the actual balloon was on fire. It had completely disintegrated and it was just a long - probably 10 or 15 metres long - trail of flame coming in toward the ground at colossal speed," he said.
The victims are a mix of locals and visitors.
The incident is one of the worst air accidents in New Zealand since 1979.
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3 News/NZN