ERA20CA191 · Bell UH 1N
US Department Of State Bell UH 1N · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From OREZ · Baghdad to Baghdad International Airport / New Al Muthana Air Base (ORBI)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA20CA191
- 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
- Government
- 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 UH 1N
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N12328
- Operator
- US Department Of State
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From OREZ · BaghdadTo Baghdad International Airport / New Al Muthana Air Base (ORBI), Baghdad
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1971)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to operator, the pilots of the helicopter were departing from the heliport for a routine passenger flight in night visual meteorological conditions. The copilot brought the helicopter to a 4 ft hover, transitioned to the left and had commenced forward flight when the main rotor blades struck a security barrier. The helicopter then impacted the ground and the main rotor blades struck the tailboom. Both pilots reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The flight crew's inadequate situational awareness and failure to maintain adequate clearance from a security barrier during a night takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA20CA191
- Event ID
- 20200511X31917
- Case number
- ERA20CA191
- 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 UTC date the NTSB stores; the local time zone is not recorded, so the local date may differ by a day.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 002e8832c831866c5409a1985f77070cbdce582c4d5bc5a4e79281be3b9fe3a3; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:35:07.714Z.