WPR25LA284 · Cameron Balloons US A-225
Rainbow Ryders Cameron Balloons US A-225 · Accident: abnormal runway contact during landing
From Albuquerque, NM to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR25LA284
- 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
Cameron Balloons US A-225
- Aircraft type
- Cameron A-225
- 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
- N980VA
- Operator
- Rainbow Ryders
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albuquerque, NMTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2022)
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Abnormal runway contact
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
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 reported that before takeoff, he instructed passengers to position themselves sideways for landing, with a shoulder facing the direction of travel. At the conclusion of the balloon flight, the pilot anticipated a bumpy landing due to an uneven landing area with knee-high bushes and winds of approximately 14 mph. He directed the passengers to get into the landing position that he had briefed. During landing, the balloon slid approximately twenty-five feet and rolled over before coming to a stop, which resulted in serious injury to one of the passengers.
The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operations. He further reported that he was not aware of the manufacturer’s landing procedure, which advises passengers to turn backwards so their back faces the direction of travel and to secure themselves using the basket handle or tank collar.
Probable cause
The balloon pilot’s improper landing, which resulted in serious injury to a passenger. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to brief the proper landing procedure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR25LA284
- Event ID
- 20250918201036
- Case number
- WPR25LA284
- 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, damage. 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: 88fdfebf610f38a4cbe78f715c52b8c0c17a31bee4ab1f0a5752d4bd350d7fac; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:21:40.573Z.