CEN09IA222 · Bell 206 L-1
Air Evac EMS Bell 206 L-1 · Incident: ground collision while taxiing
From St. Johns Hospi, IL to AE27 · Springfield, IL
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's departure or destination. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09IA222
- 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
- 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 206 L-1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 206
- 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
- N595AE
- Operator
- Air Evac EMS
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route Narrative disagrees
- From St. Johns Hospi, ILTo AE27 · Springfield, IL
- 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
- Taxi
- 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
- Ground collision
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was returning to the company helipad when he was told by another on duty pilot on the ground to refuel at a south fuel tank because the north fuel tank was empty. A helicopter was parked at the northeast end of the helipad. The pilot said that he attempted to get close to the south fuel tank for the fuel hose to reach the helicopter so that he wouldn't have to pull out the full length of the hose. As he brought the helicopter into a hover, its main rotor blades stuck the main rotor blades of the parked helicopter. The pilot said that there was good visibility and a lot of lights in the area. The on duty pilot said that he was going to ground guide the helicopter but that his radio battery lost power and was unable to do so.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the parked helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09IA222
- Event ID
- 20090320X02943
- Case number
- CEN09IA222
- 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: investigation status. 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: 32f13f9c86d14c18a6d14464bb8710b37f2e81fd1e618d55a096d89b835b0b78; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:51:32.852Z.