2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash
Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides Kubicek BB85 Z · Collision with power lines due to pilot error
From Fentress Airpark (XS90) to Fentress Airpark (XS90)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA16MA204
- 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
- 16 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 16
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Kubicek BB85 Z
- Aircraft type
- Kubicek BB85
- 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
- N2469L
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fentress Airpark (XS90), Fentress, TXTo Fentress Airpark (XS90), Fentress, TX
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- Controlled flight into terrain/object (CFIT)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
From the Wikipedia article
On July 30, 2016, 16 people were killed when the hot air balloon they were riding in struck power lines, crashed and caught fire in the unincorporated community of Maxwell, near Lockhart, Texas, 30 mi south of the state capital Austin. It is the deadliest ballooning disaster to ever occur in the United States.
Accident
About 1 hour and 50 minutes before the flight's takeoff, the pilot assessed weather observations and forecasts for the planned route that indicated observations of clouds as low as 1,100 feet above ground level. The balloon departed from Fentress Airpark at 06:58 local time (11:58 UTC) on Saturday, July 30, 2016. The ground crew at takeoff reported watching the balloon fly in and out of a cloud layer until losing sight of it. The flight was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a sightseeing passenger flight. It was carrying the pilot and fifteen passengers. At 07:42, the aircraft struck power lines, caught fire and crashed into a field near Lockhart, Texas. All sixteen people on board were killed. The emergency services were alerted at 07:44 about a "possible vehicle accident", and arrived at the scene to find the basket of the balloon on fire.
A witness described hearing two "pops" which were thought to be a gun going off. Reports said that the balloon lost contact about half an hour into the scheduled one-hour flight. The envelope of the balloon landed about 3/4 mi northeast of the burned-out gondola. The flight had covered a distance of about 8 nmi.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) led the investigation into what was designated a "major accident" by the NTSB. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also secured evidence for the NTSB's investigation. Fourteen personal electronic devices (cellphones, an iPad, and cameras) were recovered from the wreckage. These were turned over to the FBI for the recovery of evidence. The NTSB held an investigative hearing into the accident in December 2016.
In October 2017, the NTSB determined the accident was caused by the pilot's "pattern of poor decision-making" that led him to launch the balloon (on a day when other balloon operators cancelled their planned flights because of low cloud and fog), to continue the flight into fog and above clouds, and then to descend near clouds which made it difficult to see and avoid obstacles. The pilot's medical conditions (depression and ADHD), the prescription drugs he was taking, and the fact that balloon pilots do not need a medical certificate even for commercial flights were contributing factors leading to the accident. An investigation found the balloon operator was found to have taken diazepam and oxycodone that likely affected the flight, as well as had enough diphenhydramine in his system to have the "equivalent blood-alcohol content of a drunken driver". Prior to the accident, the balloon's operator had at least four convictions for drunk driving and two incarcerations, conditions that would have prevented him from obtaining a medical flight certificate, should they have been required at the time.
Text from the Wikipedia article “2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash” (revision 1373246296, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
The NTSB's full report is available at http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AccidentReports.aspx. The Aircraft Accident Report number is NTSB/AAR-17/03.
On July 30, 2016, about 0742 central daylight time, a Balóny Kubícek BB85Z hot air balloon, N2469L, operated by Heart of Texas Hot Air Balloon Rides, struck power lines and crashed in a field near Lockhart, Texas. The pilot and 15 passengers died, and the balloon was destroyed by impact forces and postcrash fire. The balloon was owned and operated by the pilot, and the flight was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a sightseeing passenger flight. The flight originated about 0658, just after sunrise, from Fentress Airpark, Fentress, Texas.
Probable cause
The pilot's pattern of poor decision-making that led to the initial launch, continued flight in fog and above clouds, and descent near or through clouds that decreased the pilot's ability to see and avoid obstacles. Contributing to the accident were (1) the pilot's impairing medical conditions and medications and (2) the Federal Aviation Administration's policy to not require a medical certificate for commercial balloon pilots.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: 2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash
- Revision
- 1373246296 · 2026-09-04 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q26201735
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA16MA204
- Event ID
- 20160730X25341
- Case number
- DCA16MA204
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash" (page 51206211, revision 1373246296); merged with NTSB case DCA16MA204 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: NTSB narrative opening date, consistent with the API date and time (local date)
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from NTSB record DCA16MA204
- Map position
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: events decimal coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: aircraft; gaps from Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: operated under Part 91: General Aviation
- Fatalities
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: NTSB API totalFatal
- Ground fatalities
- NTSB record DCA16MA204: events.inj_f_grnd
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (3)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "2016 Lockhart hot air balloon crash" and NTSB case DCA16MA204, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this US event the NTSB's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. 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.