FTW97LA011 · Avian Balloon SKYHAWK
Avian Balloon SKYHAWK · Accident during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA011
- 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
Avian Balloon SKYHAWK
- Aircraft type
- Avian Balloon SKYHAWK
- 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
- N47AV
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Improper decision
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Albuquerque, NM, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the balloon was on a 'dawn patrol' demonstration. The crew members were holding to the gondola just prior to breaking ground. As the balloon became airborne, a crew member's hand became caught on one of the rope handles normally used by passengers. She was lifted up to about 20 feet AGL. Someone on the ground said, 'jump,' and she released the handle. Before impacting the ground, she contacted the side of another balloon that was being inflated. The pilot stated that he was not aware that the crew member was in distress.
Probable cause
The ground crew member's failure keep clear from the gondola during take off. A factor was the pilot's failure to insure crew coordination during take off.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA011
- Event ID
- 20001208X06877
- Case number
- FTW97LA011
- 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, damage. 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: ab2a543197d53d2367d25133be4fca82b1a20d285abae834b31be4edb4bf3f3e; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:25:35.507Z.