CHI98FA323 · Bell 222
Bell 222 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Sanford Usd Medical Center Heliport (1SD9) to Spencer Municipal Hospital Heliport (1IA3)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI98FA323
- 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
- 3 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 222
- Aircraft type
- Bell 222
- 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
- N30SV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sanford Usd Medical Center Heliport (1SD9), Sioux Falls, SDTo Spencer Municipal Hospital Heliport (1IA3), IA
- 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
- En route · descent
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Miscellaneous, dowel/pin › Fatigue
- Miscellaneous, dowel/pin › Loose
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter experienced an in-flight break-up when it was traveling at about 130 knots at 960 feet above the ground. The wreckage path was on a 090 heading between 0.8 to 1.2 miles west of the Spencer, Iowa, airport. Examination of the swashplate outer ring pins revealed a bending fatigue fracture occurred in the 'white' pin. The fatigue cracking originated in the undercut fillet radius adjacent to the head of the pin. The 'white' and 'red' bores and the 'red' pin (The white pin was not located) were checked for proper dimensions. The examination indicated an insufficient interference fit between the outer swashplate bores and the outer diameter of the swashplate ring pins.
Probable cause
The below standard (loose) fit of the 'white' swashplate outer ring pin resulting in fatigue and subsequent separation of the pin, and ultimately the in-flight breakup of the rotorcraft. A factor was the manufacturer's dissemination of the pin which did not meet dimensional standards.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI98FA323
- Event ID
- 20001211X10786
- Case number
- CHI98FA323
- 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 1998-08-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 9a4c72c08fbe556d6a42f2eca9e5141ca88e7ff410737c8c9b634744559e0a99; retrieved 2026-09-20T22:27:17.284Z.