MIA85FA143 · Balloon Works FIREFLY 7B
Balloon Works FIREFLY 7B · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during landing
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA85FA143
- 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
- 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 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
- N36938
- Operator
- Unknown
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Balloon equipment, burner system › Exploded
- Fuel system, line fitting › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE BALLOON WAS DESTROYED BY AN EXPLOSION AND SUBSEQUENT FIRE DURING TOUCHDOWN IN AN OPEN FLD. THE PLT AND WITNESSES STATED THE GONDOLA TOUCHED DOWN WITH A 'JOLT' AND TILTED IN THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, A POPPING NOISE WAS HEARD FOLLOWED BY A HISSING NOISE AND A CLOUD OF PROPANE GAS VAPOR WAS SEEN RISING TOWARD THE PILOT LIGHT OF THE BURNER LOCATED NEAR THE OCCUPANT'S HEADS. THE PLT AND ONE PASSENGER ESCAPED FROM THE GONDOLA AS AN EXPLOSION OCCURRED. THE BALLOON THEN ASCENDED APRX 200 FT WITH THE 2ND PASSENGER STILL IN THE GONDOLA. A 2ND EXPLOSION WAS HEARD AT WHICH TIME THE GONDOLA SEPARATED FROM THE ENVELOPE AND FELL TO THE GROUND. INVESTIGATION REVEALED THE METAL FITTING CONNECTING THE #1 PROPANE TANK TO THE FUEL SUPPLY HOSE HAD FAILED. METALLURGICAL EXAM DISCLOSED THE FRACTURE WAS DUE TO OVERSTRESS WITH NO EVIDENCE OF FATIGUE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA85FA143
- Event ID
- 20001214X36252
- Case number
- MIA85FA143
- 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. 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: 39060913ace0fc93c40c492b7aade7bd2806a8de83320e9384b6963b1c999543; retrieved 2026-09-21T05:04:44.337Z.