DFW05FA040 · Bell 407
Bell 407 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Ship Shoal 149, GM to Ship Shoal 130E, GM
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05FA040
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 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
- N976AA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Ship Shoal 149, GMTo Ship Shoal 130E, GM
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover in 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
- 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
- Object › Other
- Pilot in command › Clearance, not maintained
- Rotor system, main rotor blade › Blade strike
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
As the 5,472-hour pilot was maneuvering to land on the helideck of an offshore platform, the main rotor blades struck an object that was temporally placed on the helideck. Subsequently, the helicopter rolled off the helideck and impacted the water. The pilot stated that while he was hovering, he asked the passenger who was seated in the left front seat where the helicopter was in relation to the platform and if the left side of the helicopter was clear because he was "watching the rotor disc." The passenger informed the pilot that the helicopter was half on and half off the platform and the left side was clear. The passenger who originally wanted to go to the platform told the pilot to continue ahead and not land. As the pilot acknowledged the passenger's request, he heard a noise followed by a sudden yaw to the right and a shutter of the flight controls. The owners of the platform stated that the helideck was not operational at the time of the accident; however, the operator of the helicopter reported that they were not aware of the status of the platform. Recovery efforts ceased and the helicopter was not recovered and is presumed destroyed.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with a stationary object while maneuvering for landing. Contributing factors were the inadequate facilities available for landing, the pilot's lack of information regarding the landing area, and the operational status of the offshore platform.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05FA040
- Event ID
- 20041221X02018
- Case number
- DFW05FA040
- 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: f8f915418c0aa7601f94ac0b57cc539b7b8f3b7ec967b7ed8bdbb313ffc14563; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:59:24.745Z.