CHI91LA183 · Balloon Works FIREFLY-7B
Balloon Works FIREFLY-7B · Accident
From Greenwood, MO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI91LA183
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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
- Unknown
Balloon Works FIREFLY-7B
- Aircraft type
- Balloon Works FIREFLY-7
- 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
- N3605G
- Operator
- Karmen W. Goosey · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Greenwood, MOTo 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
- Other
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Crew/group briefing, not understood
- Pilot in command › Crew/group briefing, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PILOT SAID THAT WHILE REPOSITIONING THE BALLOON AFTER LANDING, SHE ASCENDED ABOUT 100 AGL TO CLEAR SOME TREES. SHE HEARD A VOICE BELOW SHOUT, 'I CAN'T HANG ON.' LOOKING DOWN SHE SAW A GROUND CREW MEMBER HANGING ON A TETHER LINE. HE LOST HIS GRIP AND FELL INTO SOME TREES FROM ABOUT 100 FEET AGL AND SUFFERED FATAL INJURIES. THE DECEASED GROUND CREW MEMBER'S WIFE HAD BEEN A PASSENGER WITH HER HUSBAND ON THE FLIGHT PRECEDING THE ACCIDENT. SHE RECALLED THERE WAS DISCUSSION ABOUT WALKING THE BALLOON THROUGH THE TREE LINE, BUT AT NO TIME HEARD ANY INSTRUCTIONS ABOUT NOT TOUCHING, PUSHING OR HOLDING THE BALLOON'S TOW LINE. SHE ALSO SAID SHE DID NOT BELIEVE THE BALLOON WOULD BE RISING TO AN ALTITUDE SUFFICIENT TO CLEAR THE TREE LINE.
Probable cause
THE INADEQUATE BRIEFING TO THE GROUND CREW BY THE PILOT, BECAUSE THE GROUND CREWMAN DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE INTENT AND OBJECTIVES OF THE MANEUVER.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI91LA183
- Event ID
- 20001212X17215
- Case number
- CHI91LA183
- 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 1991-06-09.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 28dabefc0a778c0deaaa2d296b9c2179ec6c4ecbec3ba6c25ef5ca9adbdc6c47; retrieved 2026-09-21T01:46:46.729Z.