WPR15WA213 · Bell 407
Bell 407 · Accident while maneuvering
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15WA213
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · 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
- Unknown
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Not recorded
Bell 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- B-7723
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- 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
- Not recorded
- 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
- Unknown or undetermined
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Not plotted · Location withheld: coordinates are missing, conflicting, invalid, or have no accepted acquisition method. No substitute location has been invented.
NTSB narrative
On July 9, 2015 at 0225 Universal Coordinated Time, a Bell 407, B-7723, was substantially damaged when it crashed at the Qiandao Lake General Aviation airport, Zhejiang Province P. R. China, while conducting a post-repair hovering test. A total of seven people were on board with 2 of the occupants reported as fatalities. The remaining five occupants received serious to minor injuries. The helicopter was being operated under the pertinent civil regulations of the Government of China.
The accident is being investigated by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The NTSB has designated a U.S. Accredited Representative under the provisions of ICAO Annex 13, as the state of manufacture for the engine.
Further information pertaining to this accident should be directed to:
Aircraft Accident Investigation Division
Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC)
East China Regional Administration of CAAC
300, Yingbin Erlu, Changning Distract, Shanghai,
200335, P R China
Tel: 0086 2122322180
Fax: 0086-21-32160050
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15WA213
- Event ID
- 20150715X13850
- Case number
- WPR15WA213
- 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.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b69f7e42e71062e50d3a5d36df261d9fb5a037e154638d8a61f7a90feab34170; retrieved 2026-09-14T19:45:59.643Z.