DEN05CA078 · Bell 47G-5A
Bell 47G-5A · Accident: in flight collision with object during takeoff
From Brush, CO to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN05CA078
- 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
- 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-5A
- 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
- N59403
- Operator
- Joel Marwitz
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Brush, COTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Substantial
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 pilot reported that during takeoff, the right rear skid of the helicopter caught on a nearby truck trailer fender. The helicopter nosed over, bounced hard, then spun around colliding with the truck trailer and the ground. The helicopter came to rest on its left side. The pilot reported the helicopter's main rotor was bent, the tail boom was bent downward, the short shaft was broken, the main frame was bent, and the Plexiglas canopy was broken. The pilot stated that it was a "nice day," the winds were "dead calm," and that there was "nothing wrong with the machine." An examination of the helicopter revealed no anomalies that could have contributed to the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the truck trailer during takeoff. A factor contributing to this accident was the truck trailer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN05CA078
- Event ID
- 20050614X00762
- Case number
- DEN05CA078
- 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 2005-05-19.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 01ca94eb5d221822567061771bfb549c4f380deb4e77cff9b272dd13d527c573; retrieved 2026-09-22T05:53:54.571Z.