LAX93LA296 · Thunder and Colt COLT 160A
Naturally High Balloon Thunder and Colt COLT 160A · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX93LA296
- 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
Thunder and Colt COLT 160A
- Aircraft type
- Thunder And Colt COLT 160
- 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
- N128TC
- Operator
- Naturally High Balloon
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Pilot in command › Touchdown, uncontrolled
- Pilot in command › Weather evaluation, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE COMMERCIAL BALLOON PILOT WAS CONDUCTING AN AERIAL SIGHTSEEING FLIGHT WITH 7 PASSENGERS. THE WEATHER CONDITIONS WERE REPORTED BY A PASSENGER AS OVERCAST CLOUDS AND GUSTY WIND CONDITIONS. AS THE PILOT WAS PREPARING TO LAND, THE BALLOON CONTACTED THE GROUND HARD AND BOUNCED ALONG THE GROUND. THE PASSENGERS WERE THROWN INTO THE BALLOON STRUCTURE. ONE PASSENGER RECEIVED A SERIOUS ANKLE AND SPINE INJURY, REQUIRING HOSPITALIZATION. THE ACCIDENT WAS NOT REPORTED BY THE PILOT AND WAS BROUGHT TO THE ATTENTION OF THE FAA ABOUT 6 MONTHS AFTER THE ACCIDENT. THE PILOT DID NOT RESPOND TO ANY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE ACCIDENT.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to adequately evaluate the weather conditions and subsequent uncontrolled touchdown resulting in a hard landing. Gusty wind conditions were a factor in the accident.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA296
- Event ID
- 20001211X11728
- Case number
- LAX93LA296
- 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: 2184a883088f1fd8f2b3ead051160b29756724f1f880fb3391ee07adcb3dc3ea; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:34:07.248Z.