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Atlas / NTSB / ATL81FA074

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ATL81FA074

1981-05-20 COVINGTON, Kentucky, United States Fatal 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Aircraft involved

Historical record (pre-1982)

NTSB recorded this accident in the pre-1982 coded-field schema — structured fields rather than free-text narrative. Decoded codes use established NTSB single-letter taxonomies; cause factors remain verbatim pending the Form 6120.4 codebook lookup.

Aircraft

BELL 47G2A1 · N73263

Damage

Destroyed

Craft type

Balloon

Classification

Accident

Light condition

Dawn

Weather

VMC

Phase of flight

D9

Operator type

D

Kind of flying

B0

Weather at impact

Sky

CLEAR

Wind

360° / 20 kt

Aircraft history

Serial number

000000002858

Total time

10,217 hrs

Pilot

Certificate

Commercial — instrument

Total hours

343

Age

47

Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)

HI SPD TURNS.EVIDENCE OF MAST BUMPING,PSBL LO RPM

Investigator remarks

OBSD TO PITCH UP,YAW L&R,GO NOSE DWN DRG LOW ALT

Cause factors

  • 84/A/I A
    MISCELLANEOUS UNDETERMINED Cause — pilot/personnel action
  • 82/J/H J
    WEATHER UNFAVORABLE WIND CONDITIONS Joint cause
  • 88/J/14 J
    MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS UNWARRANTED LOW FLYING Joint cause

Decoded against the NTSB Form 6120.4 cause-factor codebook (ct_Pre1982 table). Each row shows the raw triplet, modifier (Cause / Factor / etc.), category, and specific code.

Source: NTSB pre-1982 historical archive. Docket 3 1506. Source file NTSB_1981_3_1506.txt. Modern CAROL record on data.ntsb.gov ↗.