Heloair Bell 407 accident
Bell 407 · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during takeoff
From Dagsboro, DE (no airport) to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07FA048
- 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
- 2 · 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
- Instrument 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
- N407JJ
- Operator
- Heloair
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dagsboro, DE (no airport)To Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), Dulles, VA
- 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
- 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 terrain/water
- 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 › Planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
While en route to pick up a passenger for a revenue VFR flight, the helicopter pilot encountered fog. She subsequently diverted from her intended destination and landed in a field. By the time her passenger arrived at the helicopter, darkness had fallen, and dense fog had formed. The pilot and passenger then boarded the helicopter. A witness watched as the helicopter climbed vertically to a height just above the trees to its left and the utility lines to its front, and hovered for a few seconds. While hovering, the landing light of the helicopter cycled on and off two times. The helicopter then pitched nose down and accelerated forward. Instead of climbing, the helicopter accelerated forward in a shallow descent until it impacted the ground. The witness described that the conditions of darkness and fog prevented him from making his way to the accident scene without the aid of a light. Several other witnesses described similar conditions around the time of the accident. Forecasted and actual recorded weather conditions in the area around the time of the accident were consistent with the observations of the witnesses. The ceiling and visibility conditions were significantly worse than the minimum values required by the company's operations specifications. Further review of the operations specifications revealed that the pilot was required to report any changes in her itinerary to the operator. No evidence was found to indicate that the pilot had notified the operator of her initial deviation and subsequent landing in the field, or of her intent to depart from that field after sunset. Additionally, during postaccident interviews the operator could not clearly articulate its actual method for determining whether an aircraft was overdue, since no one individual was charged with that specific duty for operations after normal business hours. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of any preimpact mechanical malfunctions.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper decision to depart under visual flight rules into night instrument meteorological conditions. Contributing to the accident was the fog and the dark night conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07FA048
- Event ID
- 20061222X01838
- Case number
- NYC07FA048
- 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: 070f66b6b823913ee167c17fc460998e313a0ebc063400cef87b1e753698a091; retrieved 2026-09-18T12:56:11.717Z.