CEN12CA279 · Balloon Works FIREFLY 7-15
Balloon Works FIREFLY 7-15 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing on approach
From Hallsville, MO to Hallsville, MO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN12CA279
- 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
Balloon Works FIREFLY 7-15
- Aircraft type
- Balloon Works FIREFLY 7
- 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
- N9079S
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hallsville, MOTo Hallsville, MO
- 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
- 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
During the slow descent from about 300 feet, the hot air balloon hit power lines. The pilot stated that, as the balloon descended, the wind shifted, and the forward speed of the balloon was reduced. Instead of continuing past the power lines, the gondola of the balloon descended between the power lines, and the envelope of the balloon became entangled in the wires. A postimpact fire ensued, resulting in substantial damage to the envelope and gondola. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical anomalies with the balloon prior to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance from power lines during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN12CA279
- Event ID
- 20120507X35707
- Case number
- CEN12CA279
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2012-05-06.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d9cc85189abc5dc19412993dc2e2d16c14a693065eb597d7af072d7cd1bbed8c; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:01:29.366Z.