SEA94LA069 · Bell 47G-3B-1
High Country Helicopters Bell 47G-3B-1 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA94LA069
- 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
- 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 47G-3B-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N4082J
- Operator
- High Country Helicopters
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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
- External load sling/harness › Entangled
- Pilot in command › Remedial action, delayed
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
JUST AFTER A LINEMAN RELEASED THE HELICOPTER TOW LINE FROM A POWER LINE THAT WAS BEING POSITIONED ON A POWER POLE, THE HELICOPTER TOW LINE BLEW BACK INTO THE POWER POLE GUY WIRES. INSTEAD OF RELEASING THE TOW LINE AT THAT TIME, THE PILOT ATTEMPTED TO MANEUVER THE TOW LINE AWAY FROM THE GUY WIRES. DURING THIS PROCESS THE PILOT LOST SIGHT OF THE TOW LINE, AND THE TOW LINE ENGAGED ONE OF THE GUY WIRES. THE HELICOPTER WAS THEN PULLED INTO A STEP BANK BY THE ENGAGED TOW LINE, AND THE PILOT'S RELEASE OF THE TOW LINE CAME TOO LATE FOR HIM TO COMPLETE A RECOVERY PRIOR TO IMPACTING THE TERRAIN.
Probable cause
THE PILOT'S DELAY IN RELEASING HIS TOW LINE WHEN THE LINE BECAME ENTANGLED WITH WIRES.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA94LA069
- Event ID
- 20001206X00824
- Case number
- SEA94LA069
- 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: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 15a2c19275fd02a919756f6a336e13f72d22138e3e751de980bd247845024372; retrieved 2026-09-21T22:42:25.122Z.