WPR12LA138 · Raven Industries Inc S-66A
Raven Industries Inc S-66A · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ) to Avra Valley, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA138
- 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
Raven Industries Inc S-66A
- Aircraft type
- Raven S-66
- 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
- N57194
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Marana Regional Airport (AVQ), Marana, AZTo Avra Valley, AZ
- 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 · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Wire
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that the balloon was traveling 5 to 7 knots west toward a road oriented north-south with a power line running along the east side of the road. Beyond the power line and road was a large area of open desert where the pilot planned to land. When the balloon was about 100 yards from the lines at an altitude of about 300 feet above ground level, the pilot began setting the balloon up for landing by cracking open the vent-top of the envelope. The pilot operated one of the two burners to compensate for the expected loss of lift from the partly open top; however, the balloon began a slow descent instead of maintaining altitude, and the descent rate seemed to accelerate. In response, the pilot operated both burners and looked up at the top of the balloon, which he found was over a third open instead of the expected 2- to 3-foot crack. Realizing that the balloon’s glidepath would now result in the basket impacting the upper wire of the power line, the pilot decided to fully open the top of the balloon and land short of the power line. The balloon descended and impacted the power line wires with the basket suspension cables contacting more than one wire, which resulted in electrical arcing. The envelope folded over the wires, and the basket came to rest on the ground. The pilot stated that the accident could have been prevented by initiating the set-up for landing only after crossing the last obstacle before the landing area.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to partially open the balloon's vent before clearing a power line while landing, which resulted in the balloon descending too soon and contacting the power line.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA138
- Event ID
- 20120316X40147
- Case number
- WPR12LA138
- 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: 7c941db9babc1e108a784237f9497aaa71e1a574a105945aa371af9fb51ec34e; retrieved 2026-09-15T17:28:10.186Z.