The Virginia Hot Air Balloon Ride Operators Safety Ledger: 5 Federal Accident Records, 3 Fatal
By the zReports Aviation Safety Research Team · zReports Research Institute
| # | Facility | City | State | Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Operators on the registry | VA | 21 | |
| 2 | Operators carrying federal accident records | VA | 5 | |
| 3 | Total federal accident records since 1982 | VA | 5 | |
| 4 | Fatal accidents on the record | VA | 3 | |
| 5 | Operators with an accident since 2021 | VA | 0 |
Under federal law, aviation accidents cannot be buried: 49 CFR Part 830 makes reporting mandatory, and the results become public record. That makes this ledger complete in one direction. An operator that never appears in it has no federal accident history to report. 5 of Virginia's 21 hot air balloon ride operators do appear, and the record includes 3 fatal accidents. Star ratings almost never say which is which.
Before you book with any Virginia operator, run the check: search the company name on zReports, see which side of the ledger it sits on, and get the full record. Every operator has an answer.
Data Provenance. This brief was generated from the zReports Consumer Records Database™ (v2026.08), which normalizes official government licensing, inspection, enforcement, ownership, and safety records across federal and state agencies. Every statistic is traceable to its originating public record. Facilities cannot pay to alter scores, rankings, or findings.
Cite: The Virginia Hot Air Balloon Ride Operators Safety Ledger: 5 Federal Accident Records, 3 Fatal, zReports Research Institute, v2026.08, 2026-08-21 — zreports.org/blog/va-balloon-safety-ledger-2026-08-21
COMPUTED FROM NTSB FEDERAL AVIATION ACCIDENT RECORDS (49 CFR PART 830 MANDATORY REPORTING) · AS OF 2026-08-21 · FACILITIES ARE NEVER CONTACTED AND CANNOT PAY TO CHANGE SCORES · HOW SCORES WORK