LAX04LA055 · Goodyear GZ-20A
Goodyear GZ-20A · Accident: in flight collision with object on approach
From Goodyear Blimp Base Airport (64CL) to Goodyear Blimp Base Airport (64CL)
Event
- NTSB case
- LAX04LA055
- 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
Goodyear GZ-20A
- Aircraft type
- Goodyear GZ-20
- Category
- Blimp
- 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
- N10A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Goodyear Blimp Base Airport (64CL), Gardena, CATo Goodyear Blimp Base Airport (64CL)
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- 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 › Go-around, delayed
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 of an airship was attempting to land with the assistance of his ground crew. The pilot acknowledged that the airship was "very light" during the attempted landing, and he had made and aborted two previous landing attempts. On the third and final landing approach, the forward ballonet was "loaded" to facilitate the ground crew's reaching the airship's bowlines. Approaching the landing site, the pilot used a combination of engine power, reverse power, and elevator control to maneuver. During this procedure the ground crew attempted to pull the nose of the airship down in order to add ballast to the airship. However, during this process the ground crew's position gave way as engine power was increased by the pilot in an effort at lowering the nose of the airship. The ground crew followed the airship as it moved away from the chosen landing site area. Eventually, as the available clearance between the airship and obstacles on the ground decreased, the ground crew directed the pilot to abort the attempted landing. The pilot stated that he attempted to abort the landing, and "tried to allow for the [light] static condition of the ship" to increase its altitude, but "nothing happened...." The airship continued to move forward until it impacted a fence and a lumber pile. At the time, the local wind speed and direction was reported as being light and variable.
Probable cause
The pilot's delayed go-around during final approach to land, which resulted in an in-flight collision with a fence. A factor associated with the accident is the pilot's failure to maintain adequate altitude/clearance from obstructions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record LAX04LA055
- Event ID
- 20031219X02067
- Case number
- LAX04LA055
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-12-04.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9dfc0dba475e585e82261595b290934d63e1100fe0a85ac872c74ac9f43c6a55; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:18:52.208Z.