WPR24LA247 · Bell 407
Brainerd Helicopter Services Bell 407 · Accident: windshear or thunderstorm while maneuvering
From Stanley, ID to Stanley, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR24LA247
- 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
- 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
- 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 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- N21BH
- Operator
- Brainerd Helicopter Services
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Stanley, IDTo Stanley, ID
- Aircraft age
- About 26 years (built 1998)
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- 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
- Windshear or thunderstorm
- 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 › Conditions/weather/phenomena
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he was conducting firefighting operations in a helicopter equipped with a 50-foot long-line and a 120-gallon Bambi bucket. Earlier in the day he performed 29 water pickups and returned to a nearby helibase to refuel. The pilot went back to the lake where he had performed the previous fills and completed 13 water pickups noting that the wind was increasing. He went to perform the 14th water pickup and entered a left downwind approach to the lake as he had done all day. On final approach, the helicopter encountered a wind shift, which resulted in a rapid rate of descent. The pilot attempted to arrest the descent by raising the collective which led to a settling with power event. The bucket impacted the water that resulted in a dynamic rollover and the helicopter nosed-in to the lake. The pilot stated that there were no pre impact mechanical failures or malfunctions that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
A sudden wind shift which resulted in a rapid descent and subsequent dynamic rollover and collision into water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR24LA247
- Event ID
- 20240715194702
- Case number
- WPR24LA247
- 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: d5588afcb803e4fbef5211374da0f5de8d3f42543757f300cb4e47b9b68980dd; retrieved 2026-09-16T19:02:57.602Z.