WPR22LA152 · Adams Balloons LLC A55S
Adams Balloons LLC A55S · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Safford, AZ to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR22LA152
- 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
Adams Balloons LLC A55S
- Aircraft type
- Adams A55
- 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
- N866RA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Safford, AZTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2019)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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 › 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 pilot stated that shortly after takeoff as they climbed to a higher altitude, she noticed the burners sounded different and they didn’t seem to produce as much power as they usually did, so she elected to perform an emergency landing. During the descent, the balloon descended below power lines, and the pilot applied maximum available power to avoid a collision with the power lines. The pilot then decreased the power to immediately land in a nearby parking lot. The balloon touched down, bounced and the envelope contacted power lines that bordered the fence enclosed parking lot. Just beyond the parking lot where the pilot landed was open uninhabited land. Postaccident examination of the accident balloon’s fuel supply system, ignition, burner, gages, and operational checks revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The pilot was able to successfully add power to climb over the power lines as she approached her selected landing site, indicating that she still possessed control over the balloon’s descent rate. Despite still having climb capabilities, she elected to continue the approach to the confined area, which resulted in a collision with power lines. Review of the landing area indicated that there were miles of unobstructed hazard-free landing sites that would have been more suitable for the landing.
Probable cause
The pilot’s decision to continue the balloon’s fast approach to an unsuitable confined landing site, which resulted in a collision with powerline wires.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR22LA152
- Event ID
- 20220413104941
- Case number
- WPR22LA152
- 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: 3bb7f998832d59b889447fed661eced006dd2d910f959b8b210d4f6b084a3d3e; retrieved 2026-09-16T15:07:56.640Z.