NTSB CAROL · Event
Event DEN79FA011
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
AEROSPATIAL SA316B · N8622
Damage
Destroyed
Craft type
Balloon
Classification
Accident
Light condition
Dusk
Weather
VMC
Phase of flight
D1
Operator type
E
Kind of flying
CI
Weather at impact
Sky
CLEAR
Aircraft history
Serial number
000000001710
Total time
2,692 hrs
Pilot
Certificate
Commercial
Total hours
4,607
Age
31
Investigator remarks
AIRCRAFT EQUIPPED WITH FLOATS
Cause factors
- 64/A/53 A PILOT IN COMMAND MISJUDGED ALTITUDE Cause — pilot/personnel action
- 88/A/11 A MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS INSTRUMENTS-MISREAD OR FAILED TO READ Cause — pilot/personnel action
- 88/J/01 J MISCELLANEOUS ACTS,CONDITIONS ALTIMETER SETTING-INCORRECT Joint cause
- 83/J/H J TERRAIN GLASSY WATER 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 4206.
Source file
NTSB_1978_3_4206.txt.
Modern CAROL record on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Beyond the agency record
Search this event elsewhere.
Pre-filled searches into the sources where news + community discussion of aviation events lives. External sources are reported, not agency. Treat them as signal that something happened, not as fact about what happened.
Entity-clustered aviation events in the press — last 24 hr + 30-day archive.
Official agency record + docket.
Investigative docket: factual reports, photos, transcripts.
Long-running aviation incident database (Flight Safety Foundation).
Community NTSB synthesis blog — often has photos and witness reports.
Gold-standard aviation incident blog.
Aviation industry news search.
GA pilot forum — informed but rumor-prone.
GA pilot subreddit search.
Tail-number page — flight history (free tier limited).
AOPA Air Safety Institute search.
Mainstream press coverage. Recent events only.
Privacy-preserving news search.
External links open in a new tab. We don't ingest their content; we deep-link search queries.