Omniflight Airways Bell 222 accident
Bell 222 · Accident: propeller/rotor contact to person while standing
From NEW YORK, NY to Jamaica, NY
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC82FA230
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
- N2772H
- Operator
- Omniflight Airways
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From NEW YORK, NYTo Jamaica, NY
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Standing · idling rotors
- 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
- Propeller/rotor contact to person
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Monitoring, inadequate
- Passenger › Proper assistance, not obtained
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
THE HELICOPTER (HEL) WAS BEING LOADED WITH THE ENGINES RUNNING. THE FLT CREW WERE AT THE CTLS WHEN THE ACDNT OCCURRED. INITIALLY, 4 PAXS WERE ESCORTED TO THE HEL BY A CUSTOMER SVC AGENT. AS THE 4 BOARDED, THE AGENT RETRIEVED THEIR CARRY ON BAGGAGE. AFT THEY HAD BOARDED (ON THE LFT SIDE), THE AGENT LEFT THE DOOR OPEN, ANTICIPATING A 5TH PAX. HE THEN CARRIED THE BAGGAGE AROUND TO THE RGT SIDE & LOADED IT IN THE BAGGAGE COMPARTMENT. AFT LOADING THE BAGGAGE, HE CAME BACK ARND TO THE LFT SIDE & HELPED LOAD THE 5TH PAX THAT A 2ND AGENT HAD ESCORTED, THEN TOOK A PSN BY THE LEFT MAIN GEAR. REPORTEDLY, THE 1ST 4 PAXS WERE STILL ON BOARD WHEN THE 5TH PAX BOARDED. AFT HE WAS SEATED & SECURED, THE 2ND AGENT LEANED FWD TO THE COPLT'S DOOR TO INFORM HIM OF THE ADNL WT. AFTER A BRIEF CONVERSATION WITH THE COPLT, SHE TURNEDBACK TO CLOSE THE PAX DOOR. AT APRX THAT TIME, ANOTHER HEL PLT SAW A PAX (1 OF THE 1ST 4) WALKING TWD THE TAIL & STARTEDTO TRANSMIT A WARNING TO THE PLT. BFR THE CALL WAS COMPLETED, THE PAX WALKED INTO THE TAIL ROTOR.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC82FA230
- Event ID
- 20020917X05047
- Case number
- NYC82FA230
- 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: f7a6e084e9fd0e7ee39ae422711b131349bf93e91105ea41fabace1cda6bf9fa; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:32:11.931Z.