MIA08WA181 · Bell 212
Aerogulf Services Bell 212 · Accident
From Oil Rig (no airport) to Oil Rig (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA08WA181
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 7 · 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 212
- Aircraft type
- Bell 212
- 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
- A6-AVL
- Operator
- Aerogulf Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Oil Rig (no airport)To Oil Rig (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
- Non-U.S., Non-Commercial
- 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
- Not recorded
- Defining eventThe 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
- Not recorded
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On September 3, 2008, at 0023 universal time, a Bell 212, A6-AVL registered to and operated by Aerogulf Services Company LLC, collided with a crane during takeoff from an oil rig in the Persian Gulf. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a visual flight rules flight plan was filed. The helicopter received substantial damage. The airline transport rated pilot-in-command, copilot, and five passengers were killed. The flight was departing from the Resilient Maersk oil rig en-route to another oil rig in the Rashid oil field.
Witnesses stated the helicopter arrived from Dubai, landed towards the front of the helipad, and cargo was off loaded. The helicopter was then observed to lift off the helipad to a hover, turn left 180 degrees, moved rearward, and collide with the crane. The helicopter fell to the deck of the helipad and caught fire.
This accident investigation is under the jurisdiction of the United Arab Emirates. Any further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
United Arab Emirates Chief of Regulations and Investigations General Civil Aviation Authority P.O. Box 3050 Dubai Telephone: 971-4-2111558 Fax: 971-4 2820847
This report is for informational purposes only and contains only information obtained for or released by the United Arab Emirates.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA08WA181
- Event ID
- 20080914X01455
- Case number
- MIA08WA181
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 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: 7107ca6e72dc56db1626b127daedf9f596d2b99fe1ab037114a5bc9e13be3bcd; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:26:58.062Z.