MIA04FA008 · Bell 47G-2A-1
Bell 47G-2A-1 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Balm, FL to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04FA008
- 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
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 1
- 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-2A-1
- 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
- N73979
- Operator
- Donn W Goodson · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Balm, FLTo 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
- 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
- In flight collision with object
- 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
- Pilot in command › Altitude/clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Buzzing, performed
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The witness to the accident stated that around 1100 he had gone for a ride in the helicopter with the pilot. The ride lasted for 20 to 30 minutes and when they landed, he got out and his friend got in to go for a ride. The helicopter took off and was gone for about 15 minutes. When it returned, he was standing in front of the hangar beside another bystander. The helicopter flew by twice, once from south to north, a second time from north to south and then turned to come from west to east. As the helicopter approached, the witness estimated it was about 8 to 12 feet off the ground. He was taking pictures with a disposable camera and the bystander was filming the helicopter's flight with a video camera. The witness stated that he believed the pilot was performing a fly-by so that he and the bystander could take pictures. He further stated that he believed "the blades on top of the helicopter struck the hangar above where [the bystander] and I were standing." The bystander was "struck by something" and fell to the ground beside him. The witness then looked to the right and saw the helicopter impact a small fishing boat and pickup truck that were parked just northeast of the hangar. The helicopter came to rest nose down, partially inverted in the cavity of the boat.. The videotape recovered from the video camera depicted the helicopter maneuvering in a manner consistent with the witness's description of the event. The tape also appeared to depict the belly or skid gear of the helicopter striking the video camera and/or the person holding the camera on the final pass. Examination of the accident site indicated that the helicopter's main rotor blades impacted the eaves of the hangar immediately above the location where the witness and bystander were standing. No evidence of any pre-impact mechanical discrepancies with the airframe or engine were found that would have prevented normal operation of the helicopter. The FAA had no record of the pilot having a valid airman or medical certificate. Friends and family members of the pilot reported that he had been flying the helicopter for many years.
Probable cause
The pilot's intentional buzzing and his failure to maintain altitude/clearance which resulted in an in-flight collision with a building.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04FA008
- Event ID
- 20031024X01809
- Case number
- MIA04FA008
- 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, coordinates. 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: 4270df82c5c2ab36319c86d8bf1a2f01f457aff76bbd51c081fd749b46782e05; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:50:51.836Z.