ERA22LA129 · Lindstrand Balloons 60X
Prestigious Promotions Lindstrand Balloons 60X · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Louisville, KY to Louisville, KY
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA22LA129
- 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
- 0
- 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 60X
- Aircraft type
- Lindstrand 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
- N377LX
- Operator
- Prestigious Promotions
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Louisville, KYTo Louisville, KY
- Aircraft age
- About 15 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a descent to perform contour flying for a practical test, the pilot applicant vented the balloon. When it began to level off too high, he vented it again and the balloon began a descent he described as “faster than (he) expected.” The designated pilot examiner (DPE) called for a burn and the pilot applicant “gave a short burn” with one burner. The DPE, recognizing that the burn was insufficient to arrest the balloon’s descent, called for another burn while simultaneously grabbing the other burner. The balloon started to ascend and when the DPE realized that the basket was going to strike a light pole, he removed his hand from the burner and called for the pilot applicant to do the same; however, the pilot applicant did not remove his hand from the burner. When the basket impacted the pole, the load tapes sustained burn and heat damage. The DPE assumed control and flew them to an uneventful landing. The pilot reported that there were no pre-accident mechanical malfunctions or anomalies that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot applicant’s delayed reaction to the balloon's increased rate of descent, which resulted in impact with a light pole.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA22LA129
- Event ID
- 20220217104657
- Case number
- ERA22LA129
- 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, 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: a060e57ffcb4522322928787f332613bd3c48c8e416a76b078ea9a63742064dd; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:58:15.907Z.