CHI07CA212 · Bell 47G-5
Bell 47G-5 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Jesup, IA to Hudson, IA
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI07CA212
- 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-5
- 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
- N8140J
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Jesup, IATo Hudson, IA
- 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
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Aircraft control, not possible
- Weather condition › Dust devil/whirlwind
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 impacted the ground following a loss of control when it encountered a whirlwind on takeoff. The pilot reported that he stopped spraying because the winds had increased. He stated that he landed and spoke with his ground crew then decided to fly the helicopter back to his home airport. He reported that the local winds were from the west-southwest at 12 mph gusting to 20 mph. He stated that he took off over a cornfield and had just passed through translational lift when he noticed a whirlwind in front of him and slightly to his left. He stated that the next thing he knew he was in the whirlwind. He stated that he felt the helicopter shake then it rolled to the right. The helicopter came to rest upside down in the cornfield.
Probable cause
The pilot's inability to maintain control of the helicopter when it unexpectedly encountered a whirlwind shortly after takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI07CA212
- Event ID
- 20070829X01270
- Case number
- CHI07CA212
- 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: fc9b5becb61be241bb497be1bafacadcf85702e7ab2cb4913347dfecacc2ed4c; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:40:26.084Z.