WPR10LA446 · Bell 47G 5
Bell 47G 5 · Accident: VFR encounter with IMC en route
From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS) to Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10LA446
- 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
Bell 47G 5
- 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
- N4427F
- Operator
- Frank Gomes
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS), Salinas, CATo Salinas Municipal Airport (SNS), Salinas, 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
- En route
- 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
- VFR encounter with IMC
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Psychological
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
After taking off on a visual flight rules flight in instrument meterological conditions, with a reported 2 1/2 miles visibility with mist and overcast clouds at 100 feet, the pilot proceeded westbound about 50 feet above ground level (agl) then, while approaching an interstate highway, climbed to 100 feet agl in order to avoid power lines. During the climb, the helicopter entered the fog. The pilot stated that after entering the fog he turned on the landing light, which blinded him and caused him to become disoriented as he attempted to make a 180-degree turn back to the airport. The pilot added that he subsequently lost control of the helicopter and impacted a highway guardrail with the tail section of the helicopter. The helicopter then came to rest inverted and partially in the southbound lane of the highway. The pilot reported no helicopter mechanical failures or malfunctions. A truck driver who witnessed the accident reported that the forward visibility was about 250 feet at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's visual flight rules flight into instrument meteorological conditions, which resulted in his spatial disorientation and loss of helicopter control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10LA446
- Event ID
- 20100904X32616
- Case number
- WPR10LA446
- 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: 11daba183fac37340ef19604de197bc17b9b4d95ff0a01eaf9da798b4073d89e; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:06:19.197Z.