Rotorcraft Leasing Compnay Bell 407 incident
Bell 407 · Incident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From A573 · HI A573A, GM to A376 · HI A376, GM
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's damage. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW08IA045
- 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
- Incident
- 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
- 0
- 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
- Visual 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
- N407AK
- Operator
- Rotorcraft Leasing Compnay
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From A573 · HI A573A, GMTo A376 · HI A376, GM
- 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
- En route · cruise
- 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 Possible conflict
Cause areas
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor control › Malfunction
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During cruise flight, the commercial pilot experienced a violent vibration in the airframe followed by a loud "pop" and the helicopter began to yaw to the right. The pilot attempted to correct the adverse yaw but could not regain tail rotor control. The pilot deployed the floatation system and performed an autorotation onto the water. Both pilot and passenger were able to egress the helicopter without incident and entered a life raft. While awaiting rescue the pilot visually inspected the helicopter and could observe no damage or malfunction. A US Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued the pilot and passenger from the water. Prior to recovery, the helicopter capsized due to the rough seas, sank and was not recovered.
Probable cause
The loss of tail rotor effectiveness for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW08IA045
- Event ID
- 20071221X01983
- Case number
- DFW08IA045
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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, 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: 974bf758f649a47c1568b791f5d0b60cb49b31693004717a79624bc62c277c4e; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:39:52.022Z.
- The NTSB's operator name is blank for N407AK; the operator shown is the name the NTSB records it doing business as.