WPR21LA268 · Bell 212HP
Rogers Helicopters Bell 212HP · Accident: external load event (Rotorcraft) while maneuvering
From Dunsmuir Muni-Mott Airport (1O6) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR21LA268
- 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
- Event fatalities
- Unknown
- 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 212HP
- Aircraft type
- Bell 212
- 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
- N911KW
- Operator
- Rogers Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dunsmuir Muni-Mott Airport (1O6), Dunsmuir, CATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 48 years (built 1973)
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- External load event (Rotorcraft)
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight was on an approach to a lake to retrieve water for a water bucket drop operation. During the approach, the instruments scanned normal, and the radar altimeter was set to 200 ft above ground level to provide a buffer between the bucket and terrain. When the helicopter crossed the shoreline, the pilot visually confirmed that the 100-ft long line and bucket were slightly trailing the helicopter and had not dipped in the water. Shortly afterward, he felt a “sudden onset of a significant vibration.” The pilot aborted the water retrieval and noticed that helicopter lost altitude. He applied forward cyclic and raised the collective, but the helicopter continued to descend. The pilot realized that he would not be able to fly out of the descent, so he decided to make a forced water landing. The pilot did not jettison the long line and bucket. After he leveled the helicopter and the skids touched down on the water, he made another attempt to take off, but the helicopter settled into the lake. The pilot reduced both throttle settings to idle in preparation to ditch the helicopter and applied right cyclic as the main rotors slowed. The helicopter rolled right, and the main rotor blades struck the water, which resulted in substantial damage to the fuselage, rotor, and drive systems. Postaccident examination of the engine revealed no preimpact mechanical anomalies. The airframe examination revealed an out-of-tolerance condition of both pylon damper rod end bearings that likely caused the vibration reported by the pilot. It is likely that, after the lateral vibration, the pilot allowed the helicopter to descend while he tried to determine the source of the vibration. As the helicopter settled into the lake, the bucket filled with water. The resulting increased weight, combined with the pilot’s failure to release the water bucket, decreased the helicopter’s out-of-ground-effect performance.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain altitude during an approach to a lake. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s failure to release the full water bucket as the helicopter was settling, which reduced the helicopter’s out-of-ground-effect performance.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR21LA268
- Event ID
- 20210713103465
- Case number
- WPR21LA268
- 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, 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: 3bd515f1517994c9dafc6e4741084d5740a2dfcd0c876101b3e7681323122006; retrieved 2026-09-16T14:17:01.176Z.