WPR14LA049 · Firefly BALLOONS, Inc FIREFLY 10
Firefly BALLOONS, Inc FIREFLY 10 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact)
From Temecula, CA to Temecula, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA049
- 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
Firefly BALLOONS, Inc FIREFLY 10
- Aircraft type
- Firefly 10
- 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
- N1623L
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Temecula, CATo Temecula, CA
- Aircraft age
- About 6 years (built 2007)
- 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
- Other
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After a 1-hour local sightseeing flight, the commercial pilot landed the balloon, disembarked some passengers, and kept a few passengers on board as he moved the balloon to a trailer. The pilot reported that, after setting the balloon down on the trailer, he extinguished the burner's pilot light and then took the burner down from the flight position to put it in the storage bag attached to the side of the basket. While putting the burner in the bag, he bumped the blast valve, and the burner then released propane, which ignited and resulted in a fire; the ignition source was not determined. The pilot and four passenger sustained serious injuries.
The Landing checklist in the Balloon Flight Manual stated, in part, that pilots should ensure that all of the valves were firmly closed before touchdown and should bleed all of the fuel lines after landing. However, a postaccident interview with the pilot revealed the he did not shut off the appropriate valves or bleed the system of gas after he extinguished the pilot light. Therefore, it is likely that the pilot's failure to follow the Landing checklist allowed the burner to release propane when he inadvertently bumped the blast valve after landing.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to follow the Landing checklist and his inadvertent contact with the blast valve after landing, which released propane that was then ignited by an undetermined source.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA049
- Event ID
- 20131113X51744
- Case number
- WPR14LA049
- 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: a93e44591b89e66425ea10b9d9f30a0c9b9d20e75bd60bcaa1e72781095f50b7; retrieved 2026-09-15T23:06:17.596Z.