CEN18LA006 · Cameron N-105
Cameron N-105 · Accident: hard landing
From Albuquerque, NM to Albuquerque, NM
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18LA006
- 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
Cameron N-105
- Aircraft type
- Cameron N-105
- 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
- N29922
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque, NMTo Albuquerque, NM
- Aircraft age
- About 31 years (built 1986)
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot stated that, after departure in the balloon, the surface wind increased to about 20 knots during the 1-hour flight. Due to the balloon's direction of flight approaching restricted airspace, the pilot decided to land at the first suitable landing site, which was bordered by power lines and trees to the north and residential homes 100 yards to the south. He landed the balloon in a steep descent to reduce the risk of the basket being dragged on the ground and briefed the passengers to bend their knees and brace for impact. The basket made firm ground contact upon landing and tipped over. The wind dragged the basket about 30 ft before it came to rest. One passenger sustained a broken foot during the hard landing.
The pilot reported that wind conditions were predicted to be light, and that the conditions he experienced were not forecast. He further stated that he was not familiar with the local flying area, and had he familiarized himself with the area, including potential landing areas and weather patterns, he may have been able to avoid being pressured to land in high-wind conditions.
Probable cause
The steep approach and hard landing after the balloon encountered unexpected high wind conditions, which resulted in a serious injury to a passenger.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18LA006
- Event ID
- 20171010X65404
- Case number
- CEN18LA006
- 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, coordinates, 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: 8737e1e89c487c3178e796a31d7dd266978090ffdf7bb884465f44c8252a156d; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:55:39.210Z.