WPR24LA019 · Cameron Balloons U S A-315 6979
Cameron Balloons U S A-315 6979 · Accident: hard landing
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA019
- 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 U S A-315 6979
- Aircraft type
- Cameron A-315
- 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
- N315RR
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Built the same year (2023)
- 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
- Hard 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that the flight was a balloon sightseeing flight that was departing from a large balloon festival. He received a weather briefing as part of the festival and there was no forecasted adverse conditions. Prior to departure, he briefed all 12 passengers on the proper landing position (knees slightly bent with both hands holding onto the rope). After a normal accent, the pilot flew for about 40 minutes and prepared to land. During the descent, he noted that the surface winds were faster than earlier in the flight. As they descended to about 75 ft above ground level (agl), the balloon encountered windshear and turbulent air. In response, the balloon descended faster than the pilot anticipated, and he was unable to arrest the descent. The balloon contacted a chain-link fence and touched down in a field. As a result of the landing, a passenger suffered a bone fracture (in the ankle area). The balloon did not sustain damage.
The pilot stated that there were no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
The High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) sounding over the landing site indicated a stable atmosphere with no thermals and a defined low-level temperature inversion to about 2,000 ft agl with light and variable winds to the surface. No strong winds were indicated below 10,000 ft mean seal level (msl).
Probable cause
The pilot’s inability to maintain control of the balloon during landing due to unforecasted windshear and turbulent air.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA019
- Event ID
- 20231024193293
- Case number
- WPR24LA019
- 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: 68d8bbd05f02e5c91813e6ba351ccff8adc3410568c509c6702b67ef02f1a04b; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:14:41.841Z.