LAX93LA289 · Raven S-60A
Raven S-60A · Accident during initial climb
From No airport to No airport
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
- LAX93LA289
- 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
Raven S-60A
- Aircraft type
- Raven S-60
- 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
- N2809D
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo No airport
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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 › Procedures/directives, not followed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot said he was initiating a takeoff for a local area solo flight. When the balloon was ready for liftoff, the student reportedly used the phrase 'crew weight off' in a customary voice call during the takeoff maneuver. Three of the four ground crewman released their hold on the basket, while the fourth individual did not let go. The basket rose rapidly and the fourth ground crewman let go of the basket at an estimated height of 30 to 40 feet above ground level. The fourth crewman fell to the ground and sustained multiple bone fractures.
Probable cause
the failure of the injured ground crewman to release his hold on the basket in a timely manner when instructed by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX93LA289
- Event ID
- 20001211X12951
- Case number
- LAX93LA289
- 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, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1993-07-13.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dff1090e776ce0f71ab63853a3fae38d4d021db79febabdbcaafb98e0d7b1802; retrieved 2026-09-21T14:16:57.205Z.