ERA16LA253 · Bell 429
State of Delaware Bell 429 · Accident: external load event (Rotorcraft) while maneuvering
From Delaware Coastal Airport (GED) to Delaware Coastal Airport (GED)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA16LA253
- 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
- 1 · 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
- Government
- 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 429
- Aircraft type
- Bell 429
- 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
- N1SP
- Operator
- State of Delaware
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Delaware Coastal Airport (GED), Georgetown, DETo Delaware Coastal Airport (GED), Georgetown, DE
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2013)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- External load event (Rotorcraft)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- None
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The purpose of the flight was for an emergency response team to complete recurrent rescue hoist training from the helicopter. The three-person team included a rescue specialist, a system operator, and a safety officer. Each crewmember needed to complete 3 evolutions in each position to complete the recurrent training. During an evolution, the system operator would be positioned on the helicopter's skid while the rescue specialist would be lowered from, then picked up and brought back into, the helicopter as it hovered about 100 ft above ground level. After three evolutions, the pilot would land the helicopter; the crew would rotate positions and restart the process. According to a rescue checklist, the security of each member's safety harness was checked before each takeoff.
The accident flight was the seventh evolution of the day, and the first flight where the fatally-injured crewmember acted as the system operator. The safety officer and rescue specialist reported they checked and verified that the restraints were secure. The helicopter then lifted off the ground, moved to the practice area, and the system operator requested and was granted permission by the pilot to move to the helicopter skid. The system operator stepped onto the skid and fell from the helicopter. The pilot stated that throughout the accident sequence, the crew was not rushing while they completed the checklists.
Examination of the system operator's equipment did not reveal any failures or malfunctions that would explain the fall. Additionally, examination of the tether to the helicopter did not reveal any abnormalities. In the absence of any equipment failure, it is likely that the system operator was not fastened to the helicopter.
Probable cause
The emergency response team's failure to ensure that the system operator was secured to the helicopter, which resulted in his fall during the recurrent rescue hoist training operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA16LA253
- Event ID
- 20160711X20144
- Case number
- ERA16LA253
- 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, damage. 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: 441b966b01db1cfbd357e52081df7cb6b6404266bd6a9ac352586445868cf6a8; retrieved 2026-09-14T21:53:57.587Z.