LAX94LA244 · Balloon Works FIREFLY 8
Balloon Works FIREFLY 8 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Canyon Country, CA (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX94LA244
- 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
Balloon Works FIREFLY 8
- Aircraft type
- Balloon Works FIREFLY 8
- 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
- N9084D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Canyon Country, CA (no airport)To 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
- Pilot in command › Wind information, misjudged
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT LAUNCHED SEVERAL PIBALS TO EVALUATE THE WIND DIRECTION AND SPEED PRIOR TO HIS INITIAL FLIGHT OF THE MORNING. HE THEN TOOK OFF WITH THE FIRST OF SEVERAL GROUPS OF PASSENGERS AND FLEW WITH THEM UNEVENTFULLY FOR ABOUT 1/2 HOUR. THE ACCIDENT PASSENGERS BOARDED THE BALLOON NEXT, AND THEIR INITIAL 1/2-HOUR-LONG FLIGHT WAS UNEVENTFUL. THEY LANDED, SEVERAL PASSENGERS EXITED THE BALLOON, ONE NEW PASSENGER CLIMBED IN, AND THEY TOOK OFF. DURING THIS FLIGHT, THE PILOT REPORTED OBSERVING THE WIND SPEED INCREASE AND RUNNING LOW ON FUEL. BY THE TIME THE PILOT COMMENCED LANDING EFFORTS, AVAILABLE SITES WERE LIMITED. SEVERAL INITIAL ATTEMPTS WERE ABORTED. FINALLY, WITH ONE FUEL TANK EMPTY AND THE SECOND TANK DOWN TO 25 PERCENT, AND WITH THE WIND SPEED INCREASING, THE PILOT RECOGNIZED THAT HE WAS RUNNING OUT OF OPTIONS. HE ELECTED TO LAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. THE PILOT LANDED THE BALLOON HARD, ON ROUGH TERRAIN, AND IN GUSTY WIND CONDITIONS. THE BALLOON TOUCHED DOWN SHORT OF THE PLANNED SITE AND IMPACTED THE SIDE OF A RAVINE.
Probable cause
the pilot's improper in-flight planning and his misjudging the wind speed information. Contributing factors were the gusty winds and the lack of suitable terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX94LA244
- Event ID
- 20001206X01562
- Case number
- LAX94LA244
- 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: 5566188931e0e0a8f125ff614dbd3c9e6986b82f79f4904f36637ac169600372; retrieved 2026-09-21T13:52:29.416Z.