ATL83LA325 · Piccard AX-6
Piccard AX-6 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Louisville, KY to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL83LA325
- 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
Piccard AX-6
- Aircraft type
- Piccard AX-6
- 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
- N16JF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville, KYTo 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Electrical tower (marked)
- 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
- Pilot in command › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RECEIVED A WX BRIEFING AT 0600 EDT & NOTED NOTHING SIGNIFICANT THAT WOULD BE A HAZARD TO FLT. HE PROCEEDED TO LONG RUN PARK, APRX 20 MI EAST OF LOUISVILLE, KY, TO LAUNCH THE BALLON. THERE WAS A 654 FOOT TOWER IN THE VICINITY, BUT THE PLT BELIEVED THE NORTHERLY, 5 KT WIND WOULD CARRY THE BALLOON WELL CLEAR. HE STATED THAT AFTER LIFT-OFF, THE BALLOON BEGAN PROCEEDING ON A PARALLEL COURSE, WELL CLEAR OF THE TOWER. IT THEN ENCOUNTERED A SUDDEN WIND-SHIFT & BEGAN DRIFTING TOWARD THE TOWER WITH INCREASING SPEED. THE PLT ELECTED TO CLIMB TO AVOID THE TOWER. BOTH BLAST VALVES WERE OPENED TO CLIMB AS RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE & A CLIMB RATE OF 900 TO 1000 FT.MIN WAS OBTAINED. HOWEVER, THE WIND SPEED CONTINUED TO INCREASE. AFTER REALIZING THAT AVOIDANCE WAS NO LONGER POSSIBLE, HE SHUT OFF THE BLAST VALVES & PREPARED FOR A COLLISION. THE BALLOON STRUCK THE TOWER APRX 20 FT FROM THE TOP, THE PLT CLIMBED ONTO THE TOWER STAIRCASE & DESCENDED ON FOOT. THE BALLOON WAS EXTENSIVELY DAMAGED.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL83LA325
- Event ID
- 20001214X44006
- Case number
- ATL83LA325
- 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: 4d4a5662bbf3962fb0679bf6cd4ab2df352d143099003ab8c3caa6ed506b99a7; retrieved 2026-09-23T21:33:43.085Z.