A L E R T Kalispell Regional Medical Center Bell Helicopter Textron Canada BHT407 accident
Bell Helicopter Textron Canada BHT407 · Accident: collision during takeoff/landing
From Kalispell Regional Hospital Heliport (MT28) to Libby, MT (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR26LA099
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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 Helicopter Textron Canada BHT407
- Aircraft type
- Bell BHT407
- 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
- N407VS
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kalispell Regional Hospital Heliport (MT28), Kalispell, MTTo Libby, MT (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 9 years (built 2017)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- 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
- Pole
- 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 › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a routine positioning flight to a hospital helipad; a procedure he had performed multiple times previously. While maneuvering to land, he thought he was lower than normal and continued to maneuver for the landing. During the landing flare, the pilot heard a loud noise and felt a vibration but landed uneventfully. After the flight, the pilot discovered that the tail rotor had contacted a helipad light post during the landing sequence, which resulted in substantial damage to the tailboom and tail rotor. The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a light post during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR26LA099
- Event ID
- 20260206202398
- Case number
- WPR26LA099
- 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 2026-02-05.
- API snapshot SHA-256: ce8eab6d3fc3b3ed88e5d2ac94e631b7de7f8afc72d34a6605e60da829c74146; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:43:23.828Z.