WPR26LA176 · Cameron Balloons US C-80
Cameron Balloons US C-80 · Accident during landing
From Rio Rancho, NM to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA176
- 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 US C-80
- Aircraft type
- Cameron C-80
- 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
- N4022X
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Rio Rancho, NMTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 30 years (built 1996)
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the balloon reported that he and the passenger, who had recently purchased the balloon, were conducting a local flight. Before departure, he briefed the passenger on proper landing posture and hand placement down low and not on the uprights. The takeoff and enroute phase of the flight were unremarkable. While on final approach to land, the pilot conducted a steep approach and demonstrated ground-tracking maneuvers before the final touchdown. During touchdown, the basket bounced and was dragged across the ground. The passenger was holding onto a basket upright during one of the bounces. Subsequently, the upright fractured and the passenger sustained a serious injury. The pilot reported there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the balloon that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The passenger’s improper hand placement on the basket upright during landing, which resulted in injury when the upright fractured during the basket’s bounce and drag sequence.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA176
- Event ID
- 20260505202936
- Case number
- WPR26LA176
- 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, 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: d5c3cdd0d6786c485b982c7e1e204c6c40ba52b2a42b926ee24ec39f9eb5605b; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:23:44.278Z.