CEN21LA164 · Cameron Balloons Z-90
Cameron Balloons Z-90 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) on approach
From McKinney National Airport (TKI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN21LA164
- 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
Cameron Balloons Z-90
- Aircraft type
- Cameron Z-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
- N4505B
- Operator
- Ret Richard V
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From McKinney National Airport (TKI), Mckinney, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2003)
- 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 systems
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
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 reported that while setting up to land in a field following a 1.3 hour flight to reestablish his solo currency, he noted on final approach that the venting system, used to release air from the envelope for descents, landings, and deflation, had malfunctioned. The pilot attempted to correct the problem while continuing to land. Immediately on landing, the balloon began to spinnaker and drag along the ground. The balloon finally came to a stop beneath powerlines adjacent to a road. The balloon sustained substantial damage to several lower panels of the envelope between the skirt and the equator. The pilot reported that not all the Velcro tabs to the parachute top of the venting system may have properly released prior to launch, which he believed was responsible for the outcome he experienced. The pilot also reported the wind was higher at the time of the accident than it was at the time of the launch, which was 5 knots.
Probable cause
The malfunction of the balloon’s envelope venting system during landing in high wind, which resulted in the balloon being dragged along the ground, substantially damaging the envelope.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN21LA164
- Event ID
- 20210325102804
- Case number
- CEN21LA164
- 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, cause areas. 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: deff33638a05d9dbecb07d512b422fad7b3bf5f78e14f559af501f12b32a0f6f; retrieved 2026-09-16T13:52:04.568Z.