CHI03IA293 · Bell 230
Bell 230 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Gary/Chicago International Airport (GYY) to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center Heliport (LL37)
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI03IA293
- 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
- Incident
- 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 230
- Aircraft type
- Bell 230
- 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
- N880SF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gary/Chicago International Airport (GYY), Gary, INTo OSF Saint Francis Medical Center Heliport (LL37), Peoria, IL
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Minor
Cause areas
- Manufacturer › Material defect
- Manufacturer › Tail rotor/anti-torque control, inadequate
- Rotorcraft flight control, t/r bellcrank/quadrant › Failure, total
- Rotorcraft flight control, t/r bellcrank/quadrant › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a repositioning flight, the medical transportation helicopter executed a precautionary landing to a vacant parking lot after experiencing an in-flight vibration during cruise flight. The pilot stated that the flight time with the vibration was less than 90 seconds. An inspection of the helicopter revealed that the tail rotor counterweight bellcrank (p/n 222-012-727-003) used to hold counterweights had fractured in two pieces. A metallurgical examination of the bellcrank indicated that the bellcrank fractured as a result of a fatigue crack propagating from a casting discontinuity formed during manufacture. Three other occurrences of the same part number were found. The manufacturer issued an information letter to all owners and operators of Bell 222/230/430 helicopters advising them of the occurrences.
Probable cause
The material defect during the manufacture of the tail rotor counterweight bellcrank and the bellcrank's subsequent failure due to a fatigue fracture.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI03IA293
- Event ID
- 20030908X01481
- Case number
- CHI03IA293
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2003-08-20.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b2b2f0e7598f5adf63f0854b4a6c96dfbebef2fa2364cfdef6af6b914b21beb4; retrieved 2026-09-22T08:42:29.952Z.