CEN09CA359 · Hiller UH-12E
Texas Air Cargo Hiller UH-12E · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Stringtown, OK (no airport) to Stringtown, OK (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09CA359
- 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
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Hiller UH-12E
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N34SD
- Operator
- Texas Air Cargo
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stringtown, OK (no airport)To Stringtown, OK (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
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The company's president reported that the helicopter pilot was "taking off from an area with large bushes and scrubby trees about 500 feet ahead. He believed he was somewhat distracted because of learning of the serious illness of his mother. ...When it appeared he might have difficulty clearing the obstacles to the left, he turned right to pass under the power lines. The tail rotor snagged the lower power line, causing the helicopter to impact the ground... The wreckage remained intact except for portions of the tail rotor and main rotor which broke off after impact." An unidentified witness reported that the helicopter had struck "lines" while conducting agricultural operations, and that the helicopter was "shattered" and "totaled." The caller stated that the helicopter wreckage had been recovered and relocated to Mineral Wells, Texas.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from power lines. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's preoccupation with personal affairs.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09CA359
- Event ID
- 20090616X31918
- Case number
- CEN09CA359
- 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: 8670b8382e288039a393f8b06061adfcdffbdabb22551456a8bf5befe1b60240; retrieved 2026-09-15T11:27:40.303Z.