SEA04TA158 · Bell 205A1
USDA Forest Service, Fire and Aviation Management Bell 205A1 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Leavenworth, WA to Leavenworth, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- SEA04TA158
- 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
- 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 205A1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 205
- 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
- N205XP
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Leavenworth, WATo Leavenworth, WA
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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 out of ground effect
- 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
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was operating under contract to the United States Forest Service (USFS). The purpose of the external load flight was to deliver equipment to a crew of smoke jumpers fighting a fire in heavily wooded, mountainous terrain. The jumpers estimated the trees in the area were a maximum of 120 feet tall, and therefore, they requested a 150 foot long line be used for the equipment drop. The helicopter was dispatched with a tandem load on a 160 foot long line. The smoke jumpers placed a marker on a sand bar in a stream bed. There was a tall dead tree (snag) located on a cut bank overlooking the sand bar. As the helicopter approached the area, one of the smoke jumpers communicated by radio with the pilot that if he did not like the marked site, he could choose his own spot. The pilot replied that he would give the marked spot a try. The radio operator did not mention the snag to the pilot. The pilot successfully placed both loads on the marker. Another smoke jumper disconnected both loads and then reconnected one of the loads meant to be dropped at another location. As the helicopter began its departure, the pilot who was sitting in the left seat, slowly turned the helicopter's nose to the left and its tail to the right. This maneuver allowed the helicopter's tail rotor to contact the snag. The helicopter began to spin and then fell to the ground. Investigation revealed that the snag was located 36 feet from the marker and was about 173 feet tall. The rotor diameter of the helicopter was 48 feet. Following the accident, the USFS issued an Aviation Safety Alert on the subject of "Clearance From Obstacles During External Load Operations." One of the recommendations in the alert stated the following: "In areas of sloping terrain or with obstacles rising to one or more sides of the cargo pickup/delivery area, or dip site, pilot should maintain aircraft clearance from all obstacles in accordance with the landing area safety circle requirements for the type aircraft. The safety circle is generally recognized as 1 1/2 times the rotor diameter."
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the snag while hovering out of ground effect during an external load operation. Factors were the smoke jumper's misjudgment of the tree heights in the area, which resulted in the use of too short a long line, and their failure to communicate with the pilot about the tall snag.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record SEA04TA158
- Event ID
- 20040816X01225
- Case number
- SEA04TA158
- 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: ec00332c1a1fa59ab1d2bc3b55b1b74b9c0400e831e5704adcab0a920f124acc; retrieved 2026-09-20T18:22:55.627Z.