GAA18CA424 · Bell 206 L1
Blackstar Bell 206 L1 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From New Castle, IN to New Castle, IN
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA424
- 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 206 L1
- 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
- N39LR
- Operator
- Blackstar
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From New Castle, INTo New Castle, IN
- Aircraft age
- About 37 years (built 1981)
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the helicopter pilot, during an agricultural flight, he landed on the tender truck platform. The ground crewman connected a hose to fill the hopper, but he did not provide positive communication to the pilot regarding task completion. Consequently, "due to crew miscommunication," the pilot took off with the hose still connected to the helicopter. The tail rotor struck the hose, and the pilot lost tail rotor effectiveness. The helicopter entered an uncontrollable right spin, and the pilot lowered the collective. The helicopter descended, struck the ground, and then rolled over.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tailboom, tail rotor system, main rotor system, and the skids.
The pilot reported that the accident could have been prevented by implementing a documented operating procedure to ensure positive communication between the ground crew and pilot.
The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to ensure that the fill hose was disconnected from the helicopter before takeoff, which resulted in the fill hose striking the tail rotor and the subsequent loss of tail rotor effectiveness. Contributing to the accident was inadequate communication between the ground crewman and the pilot.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA424
- Event ID
- 20180716X60511
- Case number
- GAA18CA424
- 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, coordinates. 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: 24b9abcbb4b37399e90adf632e1e804739cffd5c0f9e617ec04b833094b29900; retrieved 2026-09-16T07:52:55.609Z.