CHI02LA008 · Bell 47G-2
Bell 47G-2 · Accident: dragged wing, rotor, pod, float or tail/skid while maneuvering
From Clark Regional Airport (JVY) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI02LA008
- 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 47G-2
- 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
- N840WA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Clark Regional Airport (JVY), Jeffersonville, INTo 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 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
- 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
- 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
- Dual student › Aircraft control, not maintained
- Dual student › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command(cfi) › Supervision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was damaged when it impacted the ground and burned while hovering. The helicopter was piloted by a certified flight instructor (CFI) and dual student. The student was the holder of a private pilot certificate with a helicopter rating. In a written report, the dual student said that he raised the helicopter up to a hover and rotated 90 degrees with the helicopter facing downwind. He said that the helicopter seemed somewhat unstable in the gusty tailwind. He said that the helicopter came up in the front and then he felt a vibration in the tail. He said that the helicopter turned and the left skid impacted the ground and the helicopter rolled onto its left side. In a written report, the CFI said that, after a rudder turn when the helicopter was facing downwind, the student, "...very abruptly pitched the nose up reacting to the wind behind him. The abrupt pitch attitude allowed the tail to strike the ground." The CFI said that the aircraft was uncontrollable at that point and ultimately rolled onto its left side. A weather reporting station located about 9 miles and 157 degrees from the accident site recorded the winds as 10 knots gusting to 18 knots from 230 degrees at 1553. No anomalies were found with respect to the helicopter and none were reported.
Probable cause
The dual student pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter, his failure to maintain altitude/clearance from the terrain, and the inadequate supervision by the flight instructor. A factor was the gusty wind condition.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI02LA008
- Event ID
- 20011026X02152
- Case number
- CHI02LA008
- 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: a8e26289b2c30f68244156835b0f9717817f0406e0db1aac1f9ea9284535f57d; retrieved 2026-09-21T19:49:58.394Z.