ERA10CA462 · Head Balloons Inc AX9 118
Head Balloons Inc AX9 118 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Quechee, VT to Quechee, VT
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA10CA462
- 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
Head Balloons Inc AX9 118
- Aircraft type
- Head AX9
- 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
- n2267U
- Operator
- Daoust Darrek N
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Quechee, VTTo Quechee, VT
- 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
- 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
- Collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was conducting a sightseeing flight just prior to sunset when the balloon encountered updrafts. He elected to land in the back yard of a private residence and initiated a descent. He allowed the basket of the balloon to contact the top of the trees to slow down his forward momentum, in an effort to make the landing area. Upon clearing the trees, he observed powerlines in the vicinity and aborted the landing. The pilot immediately selected another backyard for his touchdown point. He observed another large tree and allowed the basket to contact the tree and the basket descended upright next to the tree. The canopy received a minor tear and one passenger sustained a fractured wrist during the landing.
Probable cause
The balloon's encounter with an updraft, resulting in an immediate landing and an intentional collision with a tree.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA10CA462
- Event ID
- 20100903X95948
- Case number
- ERA10CA462
- 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. 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: 389b6a71497e69ded7b61c5831a441d29577f033e468bd83252feb0db12ac14a; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:06:06.988Z.