CEN09LA324 · Bell 47G 2
Michael E. Mollere Lamm Ranch Bell 47G 2 · Accident: fire/smoke (non-impact) while standing
From San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI) to San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09LA324
- 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 2
- 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
- N4823
- Operator
- Michael E. Mollere Lamm Ranch
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI), Kyle, TXTo San Marcos Regional Airport (HYI), Kyle, TX
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Fire/smoke (non-impact)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was belted in the left pilot seat with the helicopter’s engine and rotor system operating at ground idle. The ground crewmember was attempting to “hot refuel” the helicopter’s left fuel tank when he noticed that fuel was not flowing from the nozzle. The ground crewmember removed the nozzle from the fuel tank and placed it on the running helicopter’s chemical tank. The ground crewmember then dismounted from the helicopter and went to a kinked portion of the refueling hose. As he straightened the kinked hose, the nozzle immediately began spraying gasoline on the engine and the pilot before subsequently igniting. Fuel spray from the nozzle continued for several seconds and then stopped. The pilot exited the helicopter unassisted and extinguished the flames by slapping his body and arms with his hands. The ground crewmember assisted by pouring water on the seriously injured pilot and then calling for help. A fire extinguisher was not installed on either the helicopter or the refueling truck, and no attempts were made to extinguish the fire on the helicopter until emergency response firefighters arrived on scene.
Probable cause
The ground crewmember's failure to assure that the fuel nozzle was closed before pressurizing the line. Contributing to the accident was the lack of an available fire extinguisher.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09LA324
- Event ID
- 20090601X13055
- Case number
- CEN09LA324
- 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: 8ea68358efa2c5c1f4642d1adb17c99b657840ad5410aeb19a031cd86ecfc806; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:14:39.668Z.