FTW97LA131 · Hiller UH-12E
Hiller UH-12E · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Alice International Airport (ALI) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97LA131
- 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
Hiller UH-12E
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N136HA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alice International Airport (ALI), Alice, TXTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 · aerial application
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire, transmission
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter impacted a set of north-south aligned power lines at the mid point between two poles during an aerial application flight. The helicopter came to rest on its side in an onion field approximately 400 feet east from the point of impact with the wires. Authorities reported that wires were found wrapped around the helicopter's tail rotor assembly. According to the FAA inspector, the helicopter approached the dark green onion field to be sprayed from the east, while flying over a fleshly plowed field which exhibited a light tan/sandy shade of color. The FAA inspector added that the poles and the power lines that the helicopter impacted with lay directly between light and dark colored fields. A completed NTSB Form 6120.1/2 was not received from the pilot/operator of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with the power lines during an aerial application flight. A factor was the power lines.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97LA131
- Event ID
- 20001208X07538
- Case number
- FTW97LA131
- 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: 451e1c4845dcd716b9ea7a7ff46f485ffe83607f0f5c5baff296696dff1a53c6; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:12:30.219Z.