DEN06LA016 · Abruzzo Grom-1
Abruzzo Grom-1 · Accident: in flight collision with object during an uncontrolled descent
From Albuquerque, NM to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN06LA016
- 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
Abruzzo Grom-1
- Aircraft type
- Abruzzo GROM-1
- 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
- N96YD
- Operator
- Richard Abruzzo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque, NMTo 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
- Uncontrolled descent
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Weather condition › Downdraft
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The balloon, USA-1, was participating in the Gordon Bennett race. It had been aloft for 22 hours and had traveled some 350 to 400 miles. Cruising about 35 mph in "smooth air" at 7,000 feet msl, it encountered "mid-afternoon dry thermals" and a "sudden and unexpected downdraft." The dry thermals forced the balloon into an "extreme" and uncontrolled descent. The veriometer "pegged" at 1,500 feet per minute descent. The crew attempted to arrest the descent rate by throwing ballast overboard, but was unsuccessful and the balloon collided with power lines. The entangled gondola severed the power lines and the balloon ascended rapidly. As it ascended, the gondola "pitched violently as much as 60 degrees" and the pilot fell out at a height approximately 30 to 40 feet. The balloon ascended with the copilot still on board. Using a satellite telephone, she notified the chase crew and gave them the location of the accident. The balloon ascended to 14,000 feet msl before the copilot was able to "[execute] a controlled descent." The balloon hit the ground hard approximately 8 miles from the accident site.
Probable cause
the downdraft forcing the balloon into the power lines. A contrbuting factor was the clear air turbulence and the power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN06LA016
- Event ID
- 20051123X01876
- Case number
- DEN06LA016
- 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: 57f66ed4a01f9633b5cb167b82e2a42fb2424d2f92fef54f33e43aa5ecdbd11e; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:02:46.729Z.