BFO93LA118 · Balloon Works FIREFLY 8B
Looking Up Advertising Balloon Works FIREFLY 8B · Accident: fire during landing
From Frenchtown, NJ (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- BFO93LA118
- 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 8B
- 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
- N7113E
- Operator
- Looking Up Advertising
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Frenchtown, NJ (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
- 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
- Fire
- 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 › Engaged
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Flemington, NJ, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
DURING AN UNEVENTFUL 45 MINUTE BALLOON FLIGHT, A LONG DRAG LANDING WAS MADE ONTO A HAY FIELD. NEAR THE END OF THE DRAG LANDING, THE BALLOON FLATTENED OUT SPREAD ACROSS THE STUBBLE OF THE HAY FIELD. THE PILOT REPORTED THAT THE PASSENGER INADVERTENTLY ACTIVATED THE BURNER WHILE EXITING THE GONDOLA. THE FLAMES FROM THE BURNER IGNITED THE STUBBLE UNDERNEATH THE ENVELOPE, SUBSEQUENTLY CAUSING THE ENVELOPE TO BURN.
Probable cause
THE PASSENGER'S INADVERTENT ACTIVATION OF THE BURNER AFTER THE LANDING, CAUSING THE TERRAIN TO BURN AND SUBSEQUENTLY IGNITING THE BALLOON ENVELOPE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record BFO93LA118
- Event ID
- 20001211X12800
- Case number
- BFO93LA118
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-07-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 87e627b864e3ae1bc8f4b6e8e7cf4bfc1f02f2df924b28dbd50f5dbef7065d03; retrieved 2026-09-23T01:52:53.142Z.