CEN19LA123 · Robinson R66
Skyline Helicopters Robinson R66 · Accident: collision with terrain/object (non-CFIT) while maneuvering
From St Jacob, IL to St Jacob, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN19LA123
- 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 R66
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R66
- 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
- N766WC
- Operator
- Skyline Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Jacob, ILTo St Jacob, IL
- Aircraft age
- About 6 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
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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 with terrain/object (non-CFIT)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was performing aerial application operations and stated that he aligned the helicopter to perform a pass along the edge of a wheat field. During the pass, he noticed a power line in front of him, but the helicopter was "too close to avoid [it]." He felt the helicopter mast contact the power line; the helicopter began to "shake" violently and then impacted the ground. The pilot stated that he had performed reconnaissance of the field before beginning the application to identify power lines and other obstructions; however, he had not seen the impacted power line during the reconnaissance nor during the application. The pilot stated that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures of the helicopter. Postaccident examination revealed that the power line was a green copper wire approximately 1/4-inch in diameter. The power line pole at the southern edge of the field was within the tree line and the field vegetation was green; it is likely that this lack of contrast contributed to the pilot's inability to identify the wire.
Probable cause
The pilot's in-flight collision with an unmarked wire during an aerial application flight; the wire lacked contrast with the surrounding environment.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN19LA123
- Event ID
- 20190421X72644
- Case number
- CEN19LA123
- 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, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2019-04-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 54b7647290791d9719b0c7cd2fbd5dd7e89a4fc293553ffe404c6e48885618d1; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:47:49.955Z.