WPR10LA200 · Bell 222U
California Shock Trauma Air Rescue Bell 222U · Accident while standing
From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) to ICL8 · Santa Maria, CA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA200
- 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 222U
- Aircraft type
- Bell 222
- 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
- N222UT
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Santa Maria Public Airport Captain G Allan Hancock Field (SMX), Santa Maria, CATo ICL8 · Santa Maria, CA
- 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
- Standing · engine(s) start-up
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 propeller/rotor
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On April 5, the pilot reported for work at 0730 to begin a daytime work shift. He was off duty on April 6 and 7, and on the 7th he went to bed at midnight. In the morning, he awoke at 0800. According to the pilot, he was aware that on the 8th he was scheduled to work a nighttime shift, but he remained awake all day. He reported for work at 1930 to begin his nighttime shift. During his preflight inspection at the beginning of his shift, he noted that both the tail rotor and a main rotor blade were tied down. He stated that he went to sleep at 2300 after being awake for 15 hours. On April 9, after sleeping about 2 hours, he received a duty call about 0110 and was dispatched for the accident flight. During a walk-around inspection in the dark, he observed a flight nurse proceed to the opposite side of the helicopter. According to the pilot, he assumed that the flight nurse had untied the tail rotor tie-down strap. He only removed the main rotor blade's tie-down strap. The pilot's failure to ensure that the tail rotor blade's tie down was removed was an error of omission, indicative of fatigue impairment. During the engine start operation, the tail rotor's strap broke. This resulted in damage to a tail rotor blade and all of the pitch change links. The pilot was unaware of this event, and he flew to the designated hospital to pick up a patient. With the patient on board during the subsequent engine start operation, a flight nurse observed broken tie-down strap material wrapped around the tail rotor driveshaft. The pilot shut down the engine. With the assistance of the flight nurse, the pilot removed the tie-down material. He then flew the patient on the prescribed emergency medical services flight and landed uneventfully at the next hospital. Thereafter, the pilot reinspected the helicopter and observed that it was damaged. The company's director of maintenance inspected the helicopter and found it unairworthy. The damaged tail rotor blade and pitch change links were unserviceable and were discarded. The blade was observed to be scratched, and it had voids in its composite material structure. The pitch change links were bent and their bearings were seized, compromising the flight control system.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection to ensure that all tie-down straps were removed prior to flight. Contributing to the accident was the pilot's improper management of sleep opportunities during the preceding rest period, which likely contributed to the development of fatigue.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA200
- Event ID
- 20100412X93228
- Case number
- WPR10LA200
- 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: 3fbfd7d1cd497f48b53495c3d79ef9619c26a8986127f9ec68ba0b0d3a6b446f; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:51:24.770Z.