WPR17LA019 · Bell 206B B
Morris Equipment Bell 206B B · Accident: dynamic rollover during takeoff
From Yuma, AZ to Yuma, AZ
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR17LA019
- 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 B
- 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
- N914HH
- Operator
- Morris-Equipment
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Yuma, AZTo Yuma, AZ
- Aircraft age
- About 39 years (built 1977)
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot stated that the purpose of the flight was to apply chemicals to adjacent fields. After applying four loads of chemicals, the pilot flew the helicopter back to the landing pad, which was situated on top of a box-truck, to load more chemicals. While attempting to maneuver the helicopter onto the center of the truck's pad, the right skid became caught on an access hole that ground personnel use to refill the load. The pilot was unaware of the problem and attempted to reposition the helicopter by lifting the right skid. The helicopter dynamically rolled over off the back of the truck and collided with terrain. The pilot stated that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s inability to maintain helicopter control after its skid got caught on the landing pad while he was maneuvering the helicopter to land on it, which resulted in a dynamic roll-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR17LA019
- Event ID
- 20161111X71332
- Case number
- WPR17LA019
- 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 2016-11-11.
- API snapshot SHA-256: b3ca26bfe75d0042b16908474d19c4e501e2e7ff526cc7018766bd6f5d08cfdb; retrieved 2026-09-16T04:49:35.485Z.