NTSB CAROL · Event
Event SEA71FWD03
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
VANCRAFT GC-1 · N3631
Damage
Destroyed
Craft type
Balloon
Classification
Accident
Light condition
Dawn
Weather
VMC
Phase of flight
Cruise — level (EA)
Operator type
D
Airport
OLYMPIA
Kind of flying
A3
Weather at impact
Sky
CLEAR
Wind
020° / 7 kt
Temp
75° F
Aircraft history
Serial number
00000000EC-1
Total time
20 hrs
Pilot
Certificate
Airline transport
Total hours
17
Age
33
Probable cause (from PRE1982.MDB)
GRND.APRX FULL POWER ON AT IMPACT.
Investigator remarks
ACFT OBSERVED TO ROLL UP ON SIDE AND PLUMMET TO
Cause factors
- 84/A/I A MISCELLANEOUS UNDETERMINED Cause — pilot/personnel action
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 0973.
Source file
NTSB_1970_3_0973.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.