DEN84LA043 · Balloon Works FIREFLY 7
Balloon Works FIREFLY 7 · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN84LA043
- 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 FIREFLY 7
- 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
- N2416H
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT WAS PARTICIPATING IN A 'HARE & HOUNDS' BALLOON CONTEST. THE AIRCREWS WERE WX BRIEFED AT THE LAUNCH SITE BEFORE THE EVENT. REPORTEDLY, THERE WAS A FRONT APPROACHING BUT IT WAS NOT EXPECTED TO MOVE THRU UNTIL ABOUT 2 TO 3 HRS AFTER THE CONTEST. ACCORDING TO THE PLT, THE WINDS WERE BLOWING AT 3 TO 5 MPH WHEN HE TOOK OFF. ABOUT 15 MIN AFTER TAKEOFF, HE OBSERVED THAT THE WIND ON THE GROUND APPEARED TO BE INCREASING & ELECTED TO LAND IN A PLOWED FIELD. HE PLANNED TO LAND FROM A RAPID DESCENT TO AVOID BEING DRAGGED BY THE WINDS. THE PLT REPORTED THAT DURING THE LANDING, HE DIDN'T BEND HIS LEGS & SUBSEQUENTLY BROKE HIS RIGHT LEG ABOVE THE ANKLE DURING TOUCHDOWN. HE REPORTED THE WINDS WERE GUSTING TO 25 KTS.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN84LA043
- Event ID
- 20001214X45045
- Case number
- DEN84LA043
- 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: 27755f9f751459db43d54789fa6b9a6af1e72e880f72bb88858b6f5926f12a8b; retrieved 2026-09-21T17:45:11.622Z.