ERA09CA482 · Bell 206 L1
Helicopter Applicators Bell 206 L1 · Accident: ground handling event while standing
From Gumboro Township, DE to Gumboro Township, DE
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA09CA482
- 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 206 L1
- 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
- N98KR
- Operator
- Helicopter Applicators
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gumboro Township, DETo Gumboro Township, DE
- 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
- Ground handling event
- 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 helicopter pilot stated that he was completing an aerial application flight due to deteriorating weather. After landing on a wet, elevated platform, he exited the running helicopter, which was a common company practice during refueling and reloading operations. Moments later, the helicopter yawed to the right, slid off the platform and landed on the mast, resulting in substantial damage to the rotor assembly, left side fuselage, and tail boom. The pilot later stated that he did not recall securing the flight controls before exiting the helicopter. A Federal Aviation Administration examination of the accident scene revealed that the flight control friction locks were not tight, and that the landing platform was not level. A representative of the helicopter manufacturer stated that there was nothing published by the company that restricted a pilot from exiting a helicopter while it was running. However, there is a note in the pilot’s operating handbook for the engine shutdown procedure that states, “Pilot -- remain at flight controls until rotor has come to a complete stop.” A representative of the National Agricultural Aviation Association stated that although the practice of hot refueling was common in the industry, the practice of exiting a running helicopter was not.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to secure the flight controls before exiting the running helicopter. Contributing to the accident was the operator’s practice of exiting the helicopter while it was still running.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA09CA482
- Event ID
- 20090826X92257
- Case number
- ERA09CA482
- 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: e78a90724be2b0a73105d2880a9eca2b06e4fb87e17c15917239863e9852392c; retrieved 2026-09-15T12:51:04.928Z.