Air Methods Bell Helicopter Textron Canada 407 accident
Bell Helicopter Textron Canada 407 · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Omaha, NE to Norfolk, NE
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN18CA072
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 Helicopter Textron Canada 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
- N214AM
- Operator
- Air Methods
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Omaha, NETo Norfolk, NE
- Aircraft age
- About 4 years (built 2014)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and two medical crewmembers were on a return flight to a hospital helipad. During the approach to the helipad, the crew heard a noise outside the helicopter. The medical crewmembers reported they felt a slight "shudder" on the helicopter but attributed it to the wind as they approached the helipad. The pilot heard the noise, but there was no effect on the controls or flight characteristics, so he continued the landing without further incident. After engine shutdown, the oncoming pilot noticed that the helicopter's tail rotor drive shaft cover was missing. The surrounding area near the helicopter's approach path was searched, and the missing cover was found.
An examination of the helicopter noted substantial damage to the tail rotor drive shaft.
The day before the accident, scheduled maintenance was performed on the helicopter's tail rotor pitch change mechanism, which required removal of the drive shaft cover. The cover was reinstalled, and no problems were reported during a subsequent preflight inspection.
It is likely that maintenance personnel did not properly secure the cover fasteners after the cover was reinstalled.
Probable cause
Maintenance personnel’s failure to properly secure the tail rotor drive shaft cover, which resulted in the cover departing the helicopter in flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN18CA072
- Event ID
- 20180110X40647
- Case number
- CEN18CA072
- 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, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2018-01-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 97f4fbfec0ec4e9e51bfd33e5961cc61205b4387604dcac4e40e2e7372f4f896; retrieved 2026-09-16T06:16:31.087Z.