WPR21LA074 · Aerostar International Inc S-60A
Aerostar International Inc S-60A · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Peoria, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA074
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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
Aerostar International Inc S-60A
- Aircraft type
- Aerostar S-60
- 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
- N6534A
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Peoria, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 33 years (built 1987)
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the balloon reported that, during the touchdown sequence, the balloon encountered an updraft and was launched back into the air towards nearby powerlines. The envelope contacted the powerlines, became momentarily entangled and an arch of electricity substantially damaged and melted several panels of fabric. As the envelope released from the powerlines, the basket dropped to the ground and rolled on its side. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the balloon that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s encounter with an updraft which resulted in a loss of aircraft control and subsequent collision with powerlines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA074
- Event ID
- 20201226102455
- Case number
- WPR21LA074
- 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, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2020-12-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9b3956c6ad5ac27efe4ab5a947f968c782bfc1138bf3f5a1f63f4c1fe0d4553a; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:31:09.646Z.