CHI84LA216 · Balloon Works BARNES FIREFLY 8-24 BARNES FIR
Balloon Works BARNES FIREFLY 8-24 BARNES FIR · Accident while standing
From ROSEMONT, MN to an unrecorded destination
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
- CHI84LA216
- 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 BARNES FIREFLY 8-24 BARNES FIR
- Aircraft type
- Balloon Works BARNES FIREFLY 8-24
- 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
- N3679A
- Operator
- Herbert C. Lind · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From ROSEMONT, MNTo 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
- Standing
- 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
- Balloon equipment, envelope › Not dumped
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Crew/group coordination, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE BALLOON LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. ACCORDING TO THE PLT, THE ENVELOPE WAS BEING DEFLATED WHEN A GUST OF WIND TIPPED THE BASKET. THE PLT SAID HE SAW A YOUNG BOY WITH HIS LEG UNDER THE BASKET. THE PLT LIFTED THE EDGE OF THE BASKET BY STEPPING OUT OF IT TO FREE THE BOY AND THE WIND DRAGGED THE BASKET. THE WIND WAS REPORTED BEING FROM THE NE AT 7 KTS WITH NO REPORTED GUSTS. THE BOYS MOTHER SAID HER SON WAS RECENTLY ALLOWED TO RIDE IN ANOTHER BALLOON AS THE CHASE CREW 'WALKED' THE BALLOON TO THE CHASE VEHICLE. SHE SAID SHE THOUGHT HE WAS HOPING TO GET ANOTHER 'WALK' RIDE. THE BOYS LEG WAS FRACTURED IN THIS INSTANCE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI84LA216
- Event ID
- 20001214X39532
- Case number
- CHI84LA216
- 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: e04eb7bd1a3d3cc0e8df88372aab37e31d719666bdb411784728fe40b2285cdd; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:35:38.002Z.