ERA20FA012 · Bell 206 B
Vertical Flight Technologies Bell 206 B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Albemarle, NC to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20FA012
- 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
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- 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 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
- N167AG
- Operator
- Vertical Flight Technologies
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Albemarle, NCTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 45 years (built 1974)
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting an aerial application flight in the helicopter. During the relocation flight from the previous site, the pilot overflew the application area and a powerline before landing on a truck near the northwest end of the field to refill the helicopter’s chemical reservoir. A witness described a normal liftoff and departure from the truck. The helicopter proceeded north along the west side of the field before turning south, then he heard a “pop” that he attributed to the helicopter striking a powerline wire before he saw the helicopter descend and impact the field. Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed that a section of a nearby powerline was entangled with the main and tail rotor drive systems, consistent with the helicopter having struck those wires.
Probable cause
The pilot's inadequate visual lookout, which resulted in impact with a powerline.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20FA012
- Event ID
- 20191018X65951
- Case number
- ERA20FA012
- 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, cause areas. 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: 3545bfc19ffe976ab425729c2180b466f27903f0ae19bbc817d428f82c15d190; retrieved 2026-09-15T07:07:02.923Z.