WPR11LA277 · Bell 212
Boeing Bell 212 · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Boeing Heliport (AZ81) to Boeing Heliport (AZ81)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11LA277
- 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
- 0
- 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 212
- Aircraft type
- Bell 212
- 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
- N49678
- Operator
- Boeing
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Boeing Heliport (AZ81), Mesa, AZTo Boeing Heliport (AZ81), Mesa, AZ
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that, after he established the helicopter in a stabilized hover about 3 feet above the ground with the crew chief following on the controls with him, the helicopter rapidly rolled right. The pilot was unable to correct the roll, and the helicopter subsequently impacted the ground and came to rest on its right side. The helicopter's fuselage sustained substantial damage, and the cockpit area was consumed by postimpact fire. Ground scars about 20 feet behind the main wreckage revealed that the tail section contacted the ground first. The pilot reported and a postaccident examination of the wreckage revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation of the helicopter.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain helicopter control while in a low hover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11LA277
- Event ID
- 20110621X25702
- Case number
- WPR11LA277
- 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: a69707a23b89851dd95ee4a2f3b77ef25317544683bf08f19ea674ec2fbb5705; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:19:28.515Z.