MIA08CA176 · Cameron ZL-60
Cameron ZL-60 · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From Anderson, SC (no airport) to Anderson, SC (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08CA176
- 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
Cameron ZL-60
- Aircraft type
- Cameron ZL-60
- 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
- N61ZL
- Operator
- Charles L. Walz · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Anderson, SC (no airport)To Anderson, SC (no airport)
- 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
- En route · climb to cruise
- Defining eventThe 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 was participating in a balloon competition event. He overflew his second target and climbed to 6,800 feet en-route to the third target. The basket started oscillating from right to left and he became disoriented. The pilot could not focus on the gauges and could not determine if he was climbing or descending. He thought he was descending, but the balloon was climbing. In order to arrest his perceived descent, the pilot continued to operate both burners which further increased his rate of ascent. During the climb he noticed that the parachute at the top of the balloon had shifted to the left and was letting out hot air. He tried to re-seal the parachute by adding more heat with the burners, and realized the balloon was in a rapid climb. The air in the balloon was evacuated and the balloon began to streamer, resulting in a rapid descent. The basket collided with a tree and the pilot was ejected from the basket. Examination of the envelope/balloon revealed the balloon was intact. All damage to the balloon was related to heat damage from the improper use of the burners or from impact damage from the tree. No precrash mechanical anomalies were noted during the inspection.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper use of the balloon burners.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08CA176
- Event ID
- 20081003X42122
- Case number
- MIA08CA176
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: b75aae52f3ffcfa8a0f99d4ce852f042edffc149e001e831aeca69708fb2c65f; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:20:14.129Z.