CEN24LA009 · Ballonbau Wörner GmbH NL-STU/1000
Global Ballooning Sl d.o.o. Ballonbau Wörner GmbH NL-STU/1000 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA009
- 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
Ballonbau Wörner GmbH NL-STU/1000
- Aircraft type
- Ballonbau Wörner NL-STU 1000
- 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
- D-OGBL
- Operator
- Global Ballooning Sl d.o.o.
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ), Albuquerque, NMTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2020)
- 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
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilots were competing in a multi-day, cross-country balloon race. The pilot-in-command stated that they were in a planned descent when they heard gunfire on the ground and ahead of their hydrogen balloon. When interviewed, the pilot-in-command stated that that he never heard any bullets passing by or impacting the balloon, nor did he observe any tracer rounds associated with the gunfire. The flight crew decided to continue the descent and land due to their concerns of flying the balloon at night, at a low altitude, with gunfire activity at the surface.
As the balloon descended toward a lighted power substation, the flight crew attempted to jettison ballast to slow the balloon’s decent and clear power lines; however, about 50-100 ft above the ground, the pilot-in-command determined that the balloon would not clear the power lines and he fully opened the balloon’s gas vent to rapidly release the hydrogen and descend rapidly to the surface. The balloon’s basket impacted the ground before the envelope blew into the power lines creating a spark and an explosion of the remaining hydrogen gas. The balloon was destroyed during the hydrogen explosion and postaccident ground fire. Both flight crew members sustained serious injuries during the ground impact, explosion, and ground fire. The pilot stated that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot-in-command’s inadequate descent planning that resulted in the balloon contacting power lines shortly after landing and an explosion of hydrogen gas.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA009
- Event ID
- 20231010193221
- Case number
- CEN24LA009
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2023-10-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 47ef627edf0d9d5ba91fdc0aab6d55a712a7d83c97e3f3cf251beb85a772e389; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:12:27.168Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative states the balloon was destroyed during the hydrogen explosion and postaccident ground fire.