ATL06LA059 · Brantly Helicopter B2B
Brantly Helicopter B2B · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Madison, AL to Cullman, AL
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL06LA059
- 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
Brantly Helicopter B2B
- Aircraft type
- Brantly B2
- 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
- N2183U
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Madison, ALTo Cullman, AL
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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
- Wire, static (marked)
- 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 › Visual lookout, 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 observed by witnesses descending and flying east bound over County Road 222 in the vicinity of Whitlock’s General Store between 30 to 200 feet above the ground. One witness thought the pilot was following a creek in preparation for landing at a private helipad where a mechanic is known to perform maintenance on helicopters. A change in engine noise was heard as the helicopter collided with telephone lines, the nose pitched down, the helicopter collided with the ground near a highway guardrail, rolled over on its right side, and a post crash fire ensued. Examination of the airframe, flight controls, main rotor system, tail rotor system, and engine assembly and accessories revealed no anomalies. The pilot stated to his brother he has no recollection of the events concerning the flight. Review of records revealed the pilot had flown the helicopter 4.1 hours in the last year.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain a visual look out while maneuvering resulting in an in-flight collision with wires and the ground. A factor in the accident was the pilot's lack of recent experience in rotorcraft operations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL06LA059
- Event ID
- 20060405X00395
- Case number
- ATL06LA059
- 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 2006-04-02.
- API snapshot SHA-256: fe804e715833f790debf3ef59f9811141cf1f21a3497f05e7c6c1f584cf8275a; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:59:22.214Z.