2006 Mercy Air Bell 412 crash

The 2006 Mercy Air helicopter accident occurred on December 10, 2006, about 17:55 Pacific Standard Time, when a Bell 412SP helicopter, call sign "Mercy Air 2" impacted mountainous terrain near Hesperia, California and the Cajon Pass. The commercial helicopter pilot and two medical crew members were killed, and the helicopter was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire.

On July 30, 2008, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released its probable-cause report on the accident. According to the NTSB, the probable cause of the crash was "the pilot's inadvertent encounter with instrument meteorological conditions and subsequent failure to maintain terrain clearance." The dark night conditions, fog, and mountainous terrain were ruled to be contributing factors.

Accident details

The Bell 412SP helicopter took off on a cross-country repositioning flight from Loma Linda University Medical Center (94CL), Loma Linda, California, at 17:42, with a planned destination of Southern California Logistics Airport (VCV), Victorville, California. Mercy Air 2 had transported a woman injured in a horse-riding accident in Phelan, California,

to Loma Linda, and was returning to its assigned base at the time of the accident, with only the pilot and two medical crew members on board. LifeNet, Inc., doing business as Mercy Air Service, Inc., was operating the helicopter under the provisions of 14 CFR Part 91. An FAA representative stated the helicopter was being operated under visual flight rules and was not being handled by air traffic control, a practice he called "perfectly normal."

At 18:00, the San Bernardino County Fire Department dispatch center started to receive numerous calls of an object falling from the sky, an explosion, and fire northeast of Interstate 15 in the area of Oak Hills. The first fire department responders to the accident site reported that the area was covered by intermittent waves of fog, which made locating the wreckage difficult.

The accident site was located on mountainous terrain on a 45° slope at an elevation of 4000 to 4300 ft above mean sea level, below a large electrical transmission tower, a little more than a mile east of I-15, and north of Highway 138. It is in a rural area with dirt roads, and no streetlights. The approximate global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the primary wreckage were:.

First responders reported that upon their arrival, the scene was fully engulfed in fire. The postimpact fire consumed around 2 acre of mountainside, and made any reconstruction of the wreckage impossible. The first identified point of impact, a ground scar located next to the separated tail boom and the left skid, was near the base of the mountainous terrain, with the debris path emanating upslope. The debris path consisted of the tail boom, both skids, both engines, the main rotor assembly, and various other fuselage panels. The energy path was measured on a 155° bearing from the first identified impact point. No distress call was received from the aircraft. Initial speculation that the aircraft went down after hitting electrical wires was quickly eliminated as a cause. Examination of the maintenance and flight department records revealed no unresolved maintenance discrepancies against the helicopter prior to departure. The helicopter was built in 1987 and refurbished in May 2004, and had no previous accident history.