FTW04CA234 · Lindstrand Balloons 90A
Lindstrand Balloons 90A · Accident: in flight collision with object while taxiing
From Mckinney, TX to Allen, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04CA234
- 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
Lindstrand Balloons 90A
- Aircraft type
- Lindstrand 90
- 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
- N6036F
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Mckinney, TXTo Allen, TX
- 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
- Taxi · aerial
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Clearance, 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
A 190-hour balloon pilot carrying two first-time balloon passengers landed in an open field and realized that the grass there was very tall. To aid the recovery of his balloon, the pilot elected to reposition the balloon closer a road where the grass was shorter. While repositioning the balloon, the pilot noticed power lines located along the road. Subsequently, the pilot shut-off the fuel and pilot light on the burner and opened the deflation port to deflate the envelope. During the deflation process, a gust of wind blew the balloon along the ground at a 45-degree angle toward the power lines. The pilot and the two passengers exited the basket before the envelope collided with the power lines. After approximately 30 to 45 seconds, the envelope was blown off the power lines and on to the nearby road.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the power lines. A contributing factor was the gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04CA234
- Event ID
- 20040929X01517
- Case number
- FTW04CA234
- 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. 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: e3063b0edd5159cbe6d9471b5326b36e1e476b50e91ace3c39369dd96e873c54; retrieved 2026-09-22T07:03:07.326Z.