Hong Kong man’s torment and frustrations in handling death of brother in Egypt balloon tragedy

It took Siu Chi-keung three years to find out whether it was just an accident that killed his brother and sister-in-law in a hot air balloon ride that went wrong in Egypt in February 2013.

The question tormented the telecommunications engineer through many sleepless nights, prompting him to go online to seek new leads only for new questions to emerge.

“It felt like there was always something pulling at my leg, a new piece of information. Then ­reporters would call and I would be online again searching for ­information like a mad man,” the 41-year-old said in a calm voice.

He and his late brother Siu Chi-man, 37, had been very close since they were boys. They attended the same school, studied the same subjects and took up the same career. The siblings would meet regularly when the younger Siu returned to their Shek Kip Mei home with his wife Eleni Kwan Pui-man, 37, for dinner every week.

When the couple passed away, Siu was determined to do as much as he could to even the score. But it was not an easy journey.

Much of his frustration stemmed from the lack of a unified system for bereaved families to seek long-term assistance as Siu found there was no single government department or team that was following up their case.

His confusion was exacerbated by what he described as a lukewarm response from Kuoni, the Swiss travel agency that took his family to Egypt.

“Our first source of information depended completely on the travel agency,” Siu said. “We felt very helpless and clueless about how to follow up. It wasted a lot of our time.”

His restless days started with a phone call from Kuoni on February 26, 2013. A hot air balloon had caught fire that morning while it was cruising the skies over the Valley of Kings in Luxor. The picturesque sunrise became the last thing most passengers saw as the distressed balloon quickly plunged into sugar cane fields. Nineteen people died, including nine Hongkongers from three families.

It was the deadliest hot air balloon disaster in history.

Siu recalled that bereaved relatives waited passively for news and arrangements in their hotel rooms in Luxor, and were given only an hour’s notice before they were taken to identify the bodies in the middle of the night.

“The forensic pathologist was a very nice man,” he said, referring to the doctor’s screening before each family was shown a body that most likely resembled their family member. “At least we don’t have to see all of the bodies, [or else] the trauma would be great … I heard some were burned so badly that they could not be identified.”

From there, the families made joint efforts to seek answers and insurance payouts.

They asked Kuoni to explain how it selected its destination management company in Egypt, Paradise Travel, and the hot air balloon service provider, Sky Cruise.

Siu said the travel agency simply informed them that “a systematic mechanism is in place to vet companies” and evaded questions by saying legal proceedings were under way.

Replies from the Egyptian consulate in Hong Kong to his letters were not helpful either as he recalled it initially focused on conveying condolences.

He said: “It would have comforted the relatives if the incident was handled better. Then we wouldn’t have had to keep on finding more people to help us.”

Soon he enlisted the help of labour sector lawmaker Kwok Wai-keung, who arranged for them to meet with Security Bureau officials on September 11, 2013 . “For the first time in six months, they asked if we needed any assistance,” Siu recalled.

But what really surprised him was the government’s passive role as it could only relay its requests to the mainland Foreign Ministry to pressure the Egyptian government to speed things up.

He continued his online search as he waited. One of his significant findings was a YouTube video he discovered last June, which was eventually used in police investigations. The shaky footage captured two people leaving the basket and helped to explain why the balloon ascended before plunging to the ground.

Siu went to Eastern Court every day when the inquest finally started in February, after the Egyptian authorities completed their probe.

He had expected coroner June Cheung Tin-ngan to return a verdict of accidental death on Tuesday. But Siu said he was still emotional as the inquest uncovered many details they had been seeking.

Families heard for the first time the testimony of Kuoni tour escort Wilson Au and head of product design Lau Tak-ping, who admitted that his company did not conduct any risk assessment and test rides, or check Sky Cruise’s licence and insurance policy before offering the optional activity.

The court heard that Kuoni relied on Paradise Travel’s words when it was told that Sky Cruise was an experienced operator, even though later investigations revealed otherwise.

Siu was shocked. “Is this a responsible travel agency?” he asked. “If only the preparation was better, a different company would have been selected and my family would not have experienced this accident.”

He was also surprised to learn from British balloon expert Ian Chadwick that the casualties could have been minimised if the pilot had followed procedures to turn off the gas and release the hot air trapped in the envelope.

“It seemed it wasn’t purely an unfortunate fatal accident,” he said.

The Coroner’s Court made 11 recommendations to the Travel Industry Council and Kuoni, with three focusing on the selection and supervision by travel agencies of destination management companies. Kuoni was also told to conduct thorough risk assessment before offering an activity. Both parties have three months to respond.

Siu now checks the internet only once every two to three days. He felt “more relaxed”, he said, even though he was still haunted by the image of his brother in the morgue.

His parents have also accepted the losses. “They have this very interesting saying that my brother has returned to visit them whenever they see an insect or a bird hovering around them,” he said.

Now that the inquest has ended, Siu is redirecting his efforts to the civil suit his father filed against Kuoni last year. “We will continue in the High Court,” he said.