CareStar Bell 407 accident
Bell 407 · Accident: in flight encounter with weather en route
From Alpine, TX to Lubbock, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW04FA097
- 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
- 4 · 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
- Charter & commuter
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Bell 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- N502MT
- Operator
- CareStar
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Alpine, TXTo Lubbock, TX
- 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
- 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
- In flight encounter with weather
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Flight into adverse weather, inadvertent
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While maneuvering during dark night conditions, an emergency medical services helicopter impacted the terrain near Pyote, Texas, after encountering a gust front that produced localized blowing dust and moderate to severe turbulence. The pilot did not obtain any formal preflight weather briefing before departure or en route. No flight dispatch services were used for the flight. No evidence was found to indicate that the pilot obtained any preflight weather briefing before departure or en route. Radar data depicted the helicopter traveling in a north-northeasterly direct route toward the destination after departing from a hospital. Approximately 34 minutes after departure, the helicopter executed a right turn to the east. About that time, the pilot contacted the company dispatch and began a position report, stating, "...hold on a [minute] dispatch, [approximately 14 seconds later] look at, gimme something to look at." There were no further communications from the helicopter. Radar data indicated that the helicopter continued in a right turn back to the north. Examination of the accident site revealed the helicopter impacted the terrain on a southerly heading in the opposite direction of the destination, consistent with the helicopter turning around again. Examination of the helicopter revealed no evidence of an in-flight control or system malfunction before the initial impact. According to documents provided by the operator, the pilot had accumulated a total of 86 flight hours as pilot-in-command of the accident helicopter make and model and a total of 4,209 rotorcraft flight hours. Reported weather conditions at the time of the accident and near the accident site included strong winds, moderate to severe turbulence, and unstable atmosphere that supported thunderstorm activity.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadvertent encounter with adverse weather, which resulted in the pilot failing to maintain terrain clearance. Contributing factors were the dark night conditions, the pilot's inadequate preflight preparation and planning, and the pressure to complete the mission induced by the pilot as a result of the nature of the EMS mission.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW04FA097
- Event ID
- 20040325X00375
- Case number
- FTW04FA097
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 2dc9d19e236e93a12acb5bcab5743958f9a289511f0bf4a3f6331410cdbd5a5a; retrieved 2026-09-18T13:01:06.124Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N502MT; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.