CEN13CA035 · Lindstrand Balloons 90A
Lindstrand Balloons 90A · Accident: hard landing
From Albuquerque, NM to Albuquerque, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13CA035
- 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
Lindstrand Balloons 90A
- Aircraft type
- Lindstrand 90
- 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
- N6061R
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque, NMTo Albuquerque, NM
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Hard landing
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before the flight, the pilot participated in a weather briefing provided by the event organization. Due to high wind velocities at low level, the balloon launch was postponed for about 1 hour and then approval to launch was granted by event personnel. At the conclusion of the flight, the pilot initiated an approach to a standard event landing field. During the approach, the wind was at a higher velocity than expected. The pilot briefed the passenger for a fast drag and hard landing. The balloon landed hard and dragged for about 150 feet. The passenger sustained a fractured arm. The pilot reported no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failure with the balloon that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The balloon pilot's encounter with higher-than-expected wind velocity, which resulted in a hard landing and passenger injury.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13CA035
- Event ID
- 20121031X91411
- Case number
- CEN13CA035
- 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, damage. 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: 9ac419cdbaddc7723e4b965ce1a7dc399e9d5578467fd01f2f23ab80714c6a57; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:19:12.511Z.