NYC99LA013 · Goodyear Aerospace GZ-20-A
Goodyear Aerospace GZ-20-A · Accident while maneuvering
From Teterboro Airport (TEB) to Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC99LA013
- 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
Goodyear Aerospace GZ-20-A
- Aircraft type
- Goodyear Aerospace GZ-20
- Category
- Blimp
- 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
- N3A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Teterboro Airport (TEB), TETERBORO, NJTo Laurence G Hanscom Field (BED), Bedford, MA
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Blimp/airship equipment › Failure
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bedford, MA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After arriving at the airport, the pilot landed and waited for the ground crew to arrive and assemble the mooring mast. Once the mast was assembled, the ground crew took over and the pilot assisted with thrust to move the airship upwind to the mooring mast. The conditions at the time of the accident were challenging, but not uncommon for airship operations. The injured ground handler was moving from one recovery position to another trying to provide assistance where needed most. Once the pull-in-line was set, the injured ground handler went to assist. While using his 200 pound body to help pull the airship to the mooring mast the pull-in-line broke, and the ground handler fell from a standing position, injuring his back. The winds at the airport were reported to be from 280 degrees at 16 knots, gusting to 24.
Probable cause
The separation of the pull-in-line. A factor in the accident was the gusting winds.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC99LA013
- Event ID
- 20001211X11333
- Case number
- NYC99LA013
- 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: a85c9a379d166c26bb5683c33b8734c1b388938a63d7de14afb71f50acf2400b; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:20:02.348Z.