CEN15CA007 · Bell 206B
Terre Haute Helicopter Bell 206B · Accident: dynamic rollover during takeoff
From Atlanta, AR to Atlanta, AR
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15CA007
- 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 206B
- 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
- N4426M
- Operator
- Terre Haute Helicopter
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Atlanta, ARTo Atlanta, AR
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1975)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter had been transported to a remote area with the skid landing gear secured to the helicopter transport trailer with four heavy duty ratchet type tie-downs. After arrival at the work location the pilot and several ground crewmembers prepared the helicopter for an agricultural application flight. The pilot reported that during his walk-around inspection prior to the flight he had overlooked the right rear tie-down, and he attempted to takeoff with the tie-down still attached to the helicopter. As power was applied the helicopter immediately rolled to the right and impacted terrain. Both main rotor blades were impact separated mid-span and the transmission and skid landing gear were partially separated. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the main rotor system, transmission, tail rotor, tail boom and fuselage. A postaccident examination found no preimpact mechanical anomalies with the helicopter. The characteristics displayed by the helicopter were indicative of it encountering a dynamic rollover.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate preflight inspection when he did not remove a tie-down strap prior to takeoff, which resulted in a dynamic rollover.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15CA007
- Event ID
- 20141008X13916
- Case number
- CEN15CA007
- 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: 96ecc415eca344f2bdf247dc15b02ce302c014fe10796c4b5140fb823d6d2180; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:50:24.001Z.