WPR10CA470 · Bell 47G 3B1
Farm and Forest Helicopter Service Bell 47G 3B1 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) during landing
From Gaston, OR to Gaston, OR
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10CA470
- 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 3B1
- 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
- N7860S
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Gaston, ORTo Gaston, OR
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he completed his last forest spray application for the day and was landing on a trailer used for transporting the helicopter. As the skids touched down on the trailer, he lowered the collective to the full down position. The helicopter abruptly tilted aft on the skid heals, and he applied up collective. The helicopter started to rotate to the right and he was unable to counter the rotation with the left anti-torque pedal. The pilot closed the throttle as the helicopter rotated 180 degrees to the right. The helicopter then contacted the side of the trailer and came to a full stop. The pilot reported that the trailer was parked on an uneven surface and that the slope and his abrupt movement of the collective resulted in the tail rotor coming into contact with the trailer. The pilot also felt that the accident could have been avoided if the trailer were on level terrain and he had waited to lower the collective until after establishing positive and complete skid contact with the surface of the trailer. The pilot reported no mechanical failures or malfunctions with the helicopter at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain tail rotor clearance while landing on a transport trailer positioned on an uneven surface.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10CA470
- Event ID
- 20100927X02720
- Case number
- WPR10CA470
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2010-09-26.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 597505fa0ab4b4b20a5271aedbaf642cb65e412a79ab382241ee226528101f82; retrieved 2026-09-15T15:21:23.404Z.