DFW07CA143 · Bell BH206B-3
Griffin Capital Bell BH206B-3 · Accident: in flight collision with object while maneuvering
From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS) to 0F8 · Sand Springs, OK
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07CA143
- 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 BH206B-3
- Aircraft type
- Bell BH206
- 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
- N196TV
- Operator
- Griffin Capital
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tulsa Riverside Airport (RVS), Tulsa, OKTo 0F8 · Sand Springs, OK
- 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
- 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 › Vehicle
- 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
The 3,354-hour commercial helicopter pilot reported that a main rotor blade collided with a satellite dish that was mounted atop the satellite truck from a television station. The pilot reported that the local flight originated at the home base airport about 15 minutes earlier. The pilot picked-up a camera operator at the requested site. The camera man boarded the helicopter and was seated on the right rear seat. The purpose of the flight was to film a television commercial for the television station showing the helicopter and the satellite truck working together as a news gathering team. The helicopter was reported to have made a series of low passes over the satellite truck. A ground crew was located nearby to film the flybys by the helicopter. The helicopter was reported to have pitched-up sharply after the main rotor came in contact with the satellite dish. The helicopter subsequently impacted the ground in a right skid-low attitude and came to rest on it's right-side. The main rotor system and the tail boom separated from the airframe during the impact sequence. There was no fire. The pilot sustained minor injuries and the cameraman was uninjured. Both occupants were able to egress the helicopter unassisted. Weather at the airport, 53 minutes after the accident, was reported as winds from 090 degrees at 10 knots, visibility 10 statute miles with light rain, temperature 25 degrees Celsius, dew point 19 degrees Celsius, and altimeter 30.14 inches of Mercury.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance with ground obstacles, which resulted in a blade strike. A contributing factor was the low altitude selected by the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07CA143
- Event ID
- 20070626X00809
- Case number
- DFW07CA143
- 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: f1695186cc7c962f60bd34de8e5a6f1ad1f8b34495f3f58ad266a1b389631d1a; retrieved 2026-09-21T18:29:01.800Z.