MIA99GA072 · Bell OH-58C
Bell OH-58C · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's operation. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA99GA072
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation Possible conflict
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Bell OH-58C
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N151ES
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Maneuvering · hover in ground effect
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- In flight collision with object
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had completed his duty day and had secured the helicopter in the hangar. Another officer then came to him at the hangar and told him that another Sheriff's Department needed their assistance right away. The pilot then took the helicopter out to the pad on a dolly, that was pulled by a tug, the size of a riding lawn mower. His usual procedure was to disconnect the tug and move it out of the way. On this flight because of the urgency of the request he left the tug attached, and moved it to the left of the dolly, but not out of the way. The pilot and the officer entered the helicopter, called for departure at 2152, brought the helicopter to a hover, initiated forward flight for departure, and moved forward approximately 12 feet, when the left skid tip struck the tug. The skid became stuck under the hood approximately 6 inches from the top of the tug. The helicopter pivoted forward causing the tail boom to move up. The pilot then attempted to correct the pitch attitude change with aft cyclic input causing the main rotor to strike tail boom cutting off the vertical fin, tail rotor and gear box, plus about 5 feet of tail boom. The nose pitched down causing the main rotor to strike the ground, the helicopter spun, and rolled over coming to rest on its right side. On the day of the accident the pilot woke up at 0630, took a flight physical that was completed at 1030. He ate lunch from 1100 to 1200, and reported for duty at 1300. Prior to the accident, he had flown a total of 1.6 hours. He was scheduled to be off duty at 2200.
Probable cause
The pilot-in command's failure to maintain clearance from the tug. A related factor was the induced pressure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA99GA072
- Event ID
- 20001205X00203
- Case number
- MIA99GA072
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1999-02-03.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d07be152422068edfcfeaffeec564cfe75d0a7ff34e9134a74b0eecc9383174a; retrieved 2026-09-21T11:12:43.750Z.