LAX94LA162 · Head Balloons, Inc. AX9-118
Northern Light Balloon Expedit Head Balloons, Inc. AX9-118 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA162
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Head Balloons, Inc. AX9-118
- Aircraft type
- Head AX9
- Category
- Balloon
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N45289
- Operator
- Northern Light Balloon Expedit
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Balloon equipment, burner system › Output low
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, improper
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Sedona, AZ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was descending to about 400 feet agl to give the passengers a better view of the surroundings and the burner pilot light went out. The pilot said he tried unsuccessfully to relight it up until ground impact. The balloon consisted of a Head AX9-118 envelope attached to a Balloon Works 5.5 basket, which included a Balloon Works Mirage F-1 burner. The installed propane gas regulator was found to be a Marshall Brass Company model 300. The envelope and basket, produced by different manufacturers, were combined together in accordance with STC SL1748. The burner tested to factory specification. The regulator was the incorrect part for the burner. Functional testing of the regulator found that it flowed at 8 psi. The correct regulator is a Marshall Brass model 301 which has a specified pressure range of 18 to 25 psi. According to Balloon Works, low regulator pressure might make reigniting the pilot lights and burners difficult once snuffed out in flight.
Probable cause
the failure of the pilot lights and burners to relight in flight once extinguished due to the installation of an incorrect gas pressure regulator.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA162
- Event ID
- 20001206X00933
- Case number
- LAX94LA162
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8cb6e23bb69486b393c8b09d5ba8702e5e4de68ea94b7d85ec2eee0fdbf74a06; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:03:40.436Z.