GAA17CA450 · Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
Lesco Aircraft Leasing & Sales Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Monmouth Municipal Airport (C66) to Monmouth Municipal Airport (C66)
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA17CA450
- 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
Robinson Helicopter Company R44 II
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R44
- 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
- N344MM
- Operator
- Lesco Aircraft Leasing & Sales
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monmouth Municipal Airport (C66), Monmouth, ILTo Monmouth Municipal Airport (C66), Monmouth, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 11 years (built 2006)
- 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
- Collision during takeoff/landing
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the helicopter pilot, after an agricultural flight, he landed on the platform located on top of the truck to refuel the helicopter. The ground crew connected the fuel and chemical hoses to the helicopter. The pilot was taking notes and his focus was inside the helicopter during the connection of the hoses. The pilot reported that he did not expect the chemical hose to be connected to the helicopter. Once the helicopter had the required amount of fuel, the pilot motioned to the ground crew using hand and arm signals that more fuel would be required after the next flight.
The driver removed the fuel hose from the helicopter and then stepped back and made eye contact with the pilot. The pilot reported that the ground crew then gave him a "thumbs up" signal. The pilot understood the signal to mean that the helicopter "was clear and safe for departure."
The pilot returned the "thumbs up" signal and advanced the throttle. The helicopter ascended, and the pilot noticed the ground crew motioning that the helicopter remained connected to the chemical hose. The pilot observed that the chemical hose was still connected to the helicopter, and he applied aft cyclic. The tail rotor and then the main rotor struck the truck.
Per the National Transportation Safety Board Pilot Aircraft Accident Report, the pilot noted that the accident could have been prevented if he had visually confirmed, "with his own eyes, that all possible connecting hoses were in fact, not connected and the departure could be safely executed."
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to visually confirm that the helicopter was disconnected from hoses during refueling operations. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s and ground crew’s misunderstanding of the hand signals.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA17CA450
- Event ID
- 20170731X71941
- Case number
- GAA17CA450
- 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: d7d4785ad0e2d469ca1b87f884af2056ff723dac4a30c91d61a50964c3590afc; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:38:10.578Z.