ATL97LA086 · McDonnell Douglas MDHC-369E
McDonnell Douglas MDHC-369E · Accident while maneuvering
From Orlando, FL (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL97LA086
- 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
McDonnell Douglas MDHC-369E
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas MDHC-369
- 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
- N765KV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Orlando, FL (no airport)To 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 · hover
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Other crewmember › Miscellaneous equipment, not used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After completing work on a power line, the pilot saw a wild pig running below the helicopter. The pilot and crew member agreed to hover over it and get a closer look. The crewmember then removed his safety harness. When the pig ran into some high grass, they climbed to continue to watch the pig. As they hovered, the pilot heard a noise from the crewmember, and the pilot turned in time to see the crewmember fall from the platform. The safety harness normally worn by power line workers was found to be in good condition with no indication of failure.
Probable cause
The failure of the crewmember to use the necessary safety equipment, and his subsequent fall from an elevated platform. A factor was the crewmember's distraction with an animal.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL97LA086
- Event ID
- 20001208X08060
- Case number
- ATL97LA086
- 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, damage. 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: aab918164c5b3c0e88672754bc301ffb5f72d0f88d65975e1316508299f99ccd; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:02:25.037Z.