ERA11CA353 · Head Balloons Inc AX8-88
Head Balloons Inc AX8-88 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Foley, AL to Summerdale, AL
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location and damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11CA353
- 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 AX8-88
- Aircraft type
- Head AX8
- 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
- N8190V
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Foley, ALTo Summerdale, AL
- 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
- 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 during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Substantial Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the balloon reported that he elected to land in a large field after the wind speed increased during the flight. During the approach the pilot aligned the gondola to scrape along the top of a tree line adjacent to the intended landing field. He stated that, in ballooning, it is a common practice to scrape against the tops of trees on approach. The pilot allowed the balloon to descend too low during the maneuver and the balloon's "red line" became tangled in the trees which caused the envelope to deflate. The balloon then caught fire and the gondola settled to the ground as the pilot turned off the fuel. Both he and the passenger egressed the gondola safely before fire consumed the gondola.
Probable cause
The balloon pilot's failure to maintain proper altitude/clearance from a tree line during the landing approach.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11CA353
- Event ID
- 20110622X83304
- Case number
- ERA11CA353
- 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: aa77764a10dd66edc78f3678892f96b6f1023a8dc15166f3c413e8a5fb5bae94; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:20:02.894Z.