CHI02LA216 · Aerostar International S-77A
Aerostar International S-77A · Accident: hard landing
From Custer State Park Airport (3V0) to Custer State Park Airport (3V0)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA216
- 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
- Unknown
- 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
Aerostar International S-77A
- Aircraft type
- Aerostar S-77
- 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
- N2867W
- Operator
- Scott E, Nash
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Custer State Park Airport (3V0), Custer, SDTo Custer State Park Airport (3V0), Custer, SD
- 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 › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The aircraft experienced a hard landing while landing on an open prairie. The pilot reported that the balloon encountered increased winds at an altitude of approximately 200 feet. He stated that the lower level wind had picked up when he came in to land. He reported that he briefed his passengers for the landing, telling them to bend their knees and hold on. The pilot stated that the balloon contacted the ground on an upslope with a fairly steep incline just prior to the prairie and he pulled the top out of the balloon for fast deflation. According to the pilot, the balloon slid approximately 60 feet to the top of the incline and as it passed over the top of the incline the basket swung up and forward for about 30 to 40 feet. He stated that the basket then contacted the ground and slid to a rest within 50 to 60 feet. The pilot reported that another pilot in a balloon behind him used a GPS to check the winds while airborne. This pilot reported the winds were 27 miles per hour. An FAA Inspector who was at the balloon rally reported that approximately 10 minutes after the accident balloon's departure, the wind speed increased and the wind direction varied. He reported that this lasted for approximately 10 minutes then the winds calmed down.
Probable cause
The pilot of the balloon did not maintain aircraft control. Factors contributing to the accident include the variable winds and the inadequate compensation for the wind conditions by the pilot in command.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA216
- Event ID
- 20020730X01248
- Case number
- CHI02LA216
- 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, coordinates, 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: 4f5f90ea5407945640a8a2d58ce670649e6e2f410643ad7b5ac2176abb7c3a18; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:36:43.462Z.