CHI03LA173 · Aerostar S-55A
Aerostar S-55A · Accident: in flight collision with object during landing
From Monroe, WI to Monroe, WI
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03LA173
- 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 S-55A
- Aircraft type
- Aerostar S-55
- 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
- N5253Y
- Operator
- Richard D. Newman · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe, WITo Monroe, WI
- 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
- 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 collision with object
- 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
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Bail-out/emergency ejection, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot received serious injuries when he exited his balloon while attempting to land. The pilot stated that as he made his approach he saw he was below power transmission lines. According to the pilot he made an attempt to go over the lines but was unable to, at which time the pilot decided to exit the balloon. The pilot reported that he jumped from the basket at approximately 8 to 10 feet above the ground. The pilot stated that upon landing he broke his ankle.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the transmission wires during landing and his decision to jump from the balloon. A factor to the accident was the power transmission lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03LA173
- Event ID
- 20030624X00935
- Case number
- CHI03LA173
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates, damage. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-06-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c8f0f79dc3e08aa6508912e9282d01a1595040ea1a8316f50c1e924a59d1a7d8; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:27:08.791Z.