24 Feb 2017: BALLOON WORKS FIREFLY 7 UNDESIGNAT

24 Feb 2017: BALLOON WORKS FIREFLY 7 UNDESIGNAT (N7423D) — Unknown operator

No fatalities • Statesville, NC, United States

Probable cause

The student pilot’s decision to place one foot on the balloon basket and one foot on the floor during the landing, which resulted in a broken ankle.

— NTSB Determination

Accident narrative

The student pilot and flight instructor of the balloon, were performing their ninth training flight. The instructor reported that during the flight, the student made an approach to a grass field with the airspeed about 5 kts. During the landing there were multiple touch downs and during the first, the balloon "rebounded back up" and touched down again about 65 feet north-west of the initial touch down point. During the second touch down the student pilot put his right foot on the front of the basket to brace for the landing and his left foot remained on the floor of the basket. The balloon touched down and the student pilot rolled his ankle. The balloon "rebounded back up" and the flight instructor pulled the valve line to deflate the balloon. The balloon came to rest about 30 feet further to north-west. The student pilot sustained a broken ankle. The balloon did not sustain substantial damage.

The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the balloon that would have precluded normal operation.

Per the recommendation of the NTSB Investigator-in-charge, the flight instructor reported:

In an effort to prevent an accident similar to the one that occurred with N7423D, I will brief student pilots as to the importance of bracing oneself correctly and that two feet on the floor during touch downs will provide better stability from the human factors perspective of balance. I will also discuss this event in future safety forums within the balloon community in order to enhance safety. It is my belief that these actions will help to prevent any future occurrences of this nature.

Contributing factors

  • cause Student/instructed pilot
  • Instructor/check pilot

Conditions

Weather
VMC, vis 10sm

Loading the flight search…

What you can do on Flight Finder

  • Search flights between any two airports with live fares.
  • By aircraft — pick a plane model (e.g. Boeing 787, Airbus A350) and see every route it flies from your origin.
  • Route map — click any airport worldwide to explore its destinations, or draw a radius to find nearby airports.
  • Global aviation safety — aviation accident database, 5,200+ records since 1980, with map and rankings by aircraft and operator.
  • NTSB safety feed — recent U.S. aviation accidents and incidents from the official NTSB CAROL database, updated daily.

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.