ATL04TA142 · Bell UH-1H
USDA Forest Service Bell UH-1H · Accident: on ground/water collision with object while standing
From Page Field (FMY) to Okeechobee, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL04TA142
- 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
- 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
- Government
- 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 UH-1H
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N128FC
- Operator
- USDA Forest Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Page Field (FMY), Fort Myers, FLTo Okeechobee, FL
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- On ground/water 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Driver of vehicle › Visual lookout, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot after landing, he noticed that one of the skids were off of the pavement and was beginning to settle in the ground. The pilot lifted the helicopter to reposition the skid on the pavement. At the same time, the refuel trailer was being pulled forward towards the helicopter. After the helicopter was positioned on the pavement, the refueling trailer continued towards the helicopter until it struck the right synchronized elevator on the tail boom assembly. Examination of the helicopter revealed the right synchronized elevator was buckled. No flight control or mechanical anomalies were reported by the pilot. Review of the USDA Forest Service operating procedures revealed that there were no operating procedures for "hot" refueling. Subsequent to this accident procedures have been adopted to prevent another reoccurrence of this accident.
Probable cause
The vehicle driver's inadequate visual lookout and his failure to maintain clearance. A factor was the lack of company standards and operation procedures.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL04TA142
- Event ID
- 20040929X01528
- Case number
- ATL04TA142
- 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 2004-07-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 356ea1657a8742b3c491d3b00b0ef94ecfb75e887b263388e24dd6da8658181b; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:16:36.148Z.