The pilot in the Texas hot air balloon crash that left 16 people dead was once arrested for driving while intoxicated, and the Better Business Bureau in Missouri had warned people about doing business with him following complaints about his balloon touring company.
Alfred (Skip) Nichols, 49, was identified as the pilot by his friend and roommate Alan Lirette.
"That's the only thing I want to talk about, is that he's a great pilot," Lirette said from a house he shared with Nichols in Kyle, Texas. "There's going to be all kinds of reports out in the press and I want a positive image there too."
Authorities have not publicly named Nichols, owner of Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides, or the victims of the Lockhart, Texas crash.
Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board said the pilot had a commercial certificate to fly a hot air balloon. Asked if the pilot had any criminal history, Sumwalt said it was too early to know.
However, a Missouri police officer told The Associated Press that Nichols was arrested there in 2000 on a felony driving while intoxicated charge and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor DWI in 2002.
Nichols had lived in Missouri before moving to Texas, and he owned a hot air balloon touring company in St. Louis County at the time, said the officer.
The officer said that based on photos he is confident the man arrested in Missouri is the same man who piloted the doomed Texas balloon.
The Better Business Bureau had warned consumers about doing business with Nichols, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 2008. It had been the third time since 2000 that Nichols had gotten an unsatisfactory record for not responding to complaints.
The Post-Dispatch quoted the Better Business Bureau as saying Nichols was on probation in Missouri for distribution, delivery or manufacturing a controlled substance and when asked to respond, Nichols said, "I prefer to make no comment on that."
Pals in Texas said Nichols had been flying hot air balloons for decades.
"[The balloon] had a happy face on it," neighbor Alix Ramczyk told NBC in Dallas Fort-Worth. "It really made you smile and that was just the kind of guy that he was."
Federal investigators say the balloon hit high-tension power lines before crashing into a pasture early Saturday morning. Witness Margaret Wylie, who lives a quarter-mile from the crash site, said she heard popping sounds and saw what looked "like a fireball going up."
At least two of the passengers, Matt Rowan and his wife Sunday Rowan, posted photos on social media before the crash. Matt Rowan had just begun a job as an army hospital burns trial unit chief, according to NBC News.
Lorilee and Paige Brabson of San Antonio were also killed in the crash, according to NBC in Dallas Fort-Worth. Paige Brabson had recently given birth, and the balloon ride was a Mother's Day present to her mom, the station reported.
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