NYC06LA224 · Garlick OH-58A
JBI Helicopter Services Garlick OH-58A · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From East Bridgewate, MA (no airport) to No airport
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC06LA224
- 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
Garlick OH-58A
- Aircraft type
- Garlick OH-58
- 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
- N802JB
- Operator
- JBI Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From East Bridgewate, MA (no airport)To No airport
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Ground personnel › Procedures/directives, not followed
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, installation, incorrect
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter was transporting empty cranberry bins via cargo hook. The bins were lifted from a flatbed trailer, about 4 feet from a ground crewmember, a 9-year hook-up veteran. After the fifth lift, the ground crewmember attempted to run to, and help a truck driver of another trailer. Although he had a hard hat with a combination ear muffs/radio receiver and microphone, the ground crewmember did not advise the pilot of his intentions, and ran under the track flown during the previous four loads. As the helicopter flew over the ground crewmember, the cargo hook opened, uncommanded by the pilot, and the bins fell about 8 feet onto the ground crewmember. The cargo hook system had been removed from another helicopter in 2002, and that helicopter had previously had it installed at a completion center in 1997. The hook release cable, Bell part number 206-072-903-101 was installed; however, the correct part number was 206-072-903-1, which was approximately 1 inch longer, and would have allowed enough slack to normally preclude any tension on the cargo hook manual release mechanism. After discovering the different part numbers, the operator found that another of his helicopters had the shorter release cable, and he changed it to the longer one as well.
Probable cause
The completion center's installation of the incorrect (shorter) release cable, and the ground crewmember's improper movement under the flight path during a bin transfer.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC06LA224
- Event ID
- 20061115X01676
- Case number
- NYC06LA224
- 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, damage. 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: 582c349c3764cfbc0bc07a540299462bcfd6dab822f86fd4f1413fddc02b63ee; retrieved 2026-09-21T08:53:41.126Z.