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Health Ministry officials said that the dead included nine Hong Kong residents, four Japanese, two Belgians, two British, and two French, Egyptian state media reported, a total of 19, and four people were missing. The Interior Ministry put the total at 18. Officials in London, Paris and Hong Kong said they were in touch with the Egyptian authorities to determine what happened to their citizens.

The three injured survivors, including the pilot, jumped from the balloon as it exploded, state media reported, quoting an unidentified owner of the company that operated the balloon.

State media said that around 6:30 a.m., the pilot had been pulling a rope to stabilize the balloon as it landed in a field of sugar cane. Then a gas hose ripped and the fire began. The pilot and two others reportedly leapt from the burning balloon before it soared back up high into the air and burst into flames. State media reported that the dead had been "cremated" by the explosion.

The nine Hong Kong residents who died were from a group of 15 people from three families who had traveled together on a 10-day trip to Egypt, according to Kuoni Travel, the Hong Kong agency that handled the excursion.

The Egyptian Aviation Ministry said it was examining the pilot's license and the balloon company's operating permit and a senior official was traveling to Luxor to investigate.

Rides in hot-air balloons over the ancient temples and ruins along the Nile at Luxor are a centerpiece of the tourist trade there and accidents have been relatively rare. In 2008 and 2009, balloons crashed into utility poles, injuring passengers, but no deaths were reported.

The crash on Tuesday, however, comes at a delicate moment for Egypt's tourist industry, formerly a vital engine of the now sputtering economy and a critical source of hard currency. The industry is struggling to persuade tourists to return despite worries about safety and security following the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

The police and internal security forces have never fully recovered from their collapse during the uprising. In the resulting vacuum, militant groups have proliferated around the Sinai Peninsula. Bedouin tribesmen there have occasionally kidnapped tourists to try to bargain for the release from jail of some of their family members.

Demonstrations and strikes closed down the Mediterranean city of Port Said for about a week following clashes last month that resulted in the deaths of two police officers and dozens of civilians. And, at around the same time, vandals in Cairo capitalized on the chaos surrounding a street protest to loot and ransack the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel.

Before the balloon crash, the attack on the hotel's lobby had been the biggest setback for the tourist industry since the revolution began.