CHI00LA230 · Bell BH-222-U
Bell BH-222-U · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid during takeoff
From Fairview Riverside Medical Center Heliport (9MN4) to Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI00LA230
- 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
- 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 BH-222-U
- Aircraft type
- Bell BH-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
- N224LL
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fairview Riverside Medical Center Heliport (9MN4)To Saint Paul Downtown Holman Field (STP), MN
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid
- 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 preflight, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not obtained
- Pilot in command › Vertical takeoff, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The hospital helicopter pad security video camera showed the helicopter had flown into the wind during the approach to hovering over the helicopter pad. A hover turn was used to place the left side of the helicopter nearest to the patient ramp. The helicopter then landed on the pad. The shadow of the windsock seen on the video recording indicated the wind was from the direction aft of the helicopter when the helicopter landed on the pad. The helicopter started to lift off the helicopter pad when the tailrotor struck the helicopter pad light that was below the tailrotor. The aft portion of the helicopter's skids were still on the deck of the helicopter pad, or very nearly still on the deck of the helicopter pad, when the tailrotor struck the lighting fixture. The helicopter yawed to right about 30 degrees and the weight of the helicopter settled back down on the helicopter's skid. The main rotor and tail rotor blades came to a complete stop about 10 seconds after the tailrotor hit the light fixture. The top of the light fixture measured about 19 inches in height. The surface weather observation recorded at MSP at 1109 cdt indicated the winds were 020 degrees at 10 knots. The surface weather observation recorded at MSP at 1153 cdt indicated the winds were 010 degrees at 12 knots gusting to 17 knots.
Probable cause
the pilot's inadequate preflight and improper vertical takeoff and not obtaining clearance from helicopter pad light. Factors included the tailwind takeoff and the helipad light.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI00LA230
- Event ID
- 20001212X21416
- Case number
- CHI00LA230
- 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: eeb454b6d0fd1ab0cc50b132234788afed8ee031928367d037e6e9144ba2af40; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:38:51.251Z.