Helicopter crash near Strelníky
Air – Transport Europe Bell 429 GlobalRanger
From Poprad-Tatry Airport (TAT) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- 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
- Event fatalities
- 4 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- 4
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 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
- Airline
Bell 429 GlobalRanger
- Aircraft type
- Bell 429
- Category
- Helicopter · from aircraft type
- 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
- OM-ATR
- Operator
- Air – Transport Europe
- Onboard fatalities
- 4
- Route
- From Poprad-Tatry Airport (TAT)To not recorded
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Task performance
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The helicopter crash near Strelníky occurred on 7 September 2016 in the Bukovina locality in the cadastral area of the village of Strelníky, approximately 20 km east of Banská Bystrica.. Three crew members and one patient were killed in the crash of the AIR - TRANSPORT EUROPE (ATE) rescue helicopter.
The accident
Near Strelníky, firefighters were helping a 38-year-old man who had an injured leg. According to TASR, the Mountain Rescue Service was helping. They reached the site, but because of the poor accessibility of the terrain they had to request the help of a helicopter. The rescuers treated and loaded the patient, but within a minute of the helicopter's take-off there was silence.
The helicopter pilot was experienced, a former military pilot. He had logged more than 4,640 flight hours and was thus among the most experienced in the company. However, ATE had introduced the Bell 429 type into service only shortly before the accident, and the pilot had logged 17 hours 48 minutes on this type, of which 1 hour 53 minutes at night.
On Friday 9 September investigators found the helicopter's flight recorder. However, during the investigation the recorder's memory modules turned out to have been damaged by intense radiant heat during the post-impact fire, as a result of which data recovery was not possible.
Investigation and cause
Investigation and causes
The investigation of accidents falls under the competence of the Aviation and Maritime Investigation Authority of the Ministry of Transport and Construction of the Slovak Republic. On 18 August 2017 it issued its final report, in which it states the following main causes:
collision of the helicopter with forest vegetation during flight in a descending turn at ground-level height,
after take-off the pilot did not climb to a safe height above the surrounding terrain.
Translated into English with AI assistance from the Slovak Wikipedia article “Havária vrtuľníka pri Strelníkoch” (revision 8072564, retrieved 2026-09-19) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out; the translation may contain errors, and long articles were cut to their first 700 words. Read the article
Sources
Slovak Wikipedia article: Havária vrtuľníka pri Strelníkoch
- Translation
- Into English with AI assistance; names of linked operators and aircraft types from Wikidata. It may contain errors.
- Revision
- 8072564 · 2025-08-09 · retrieved 2026-09-19
- Wikidata
- Q26936147
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- sk Wikipedia article "Havária vrtuľníka pri Strelníkoch" (page 582708, revision 8072564), translated into English with AI assistance
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site; country from Wikidata (P17)
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- operator is an airline according to Wikidata
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Slovak Wikipedia article's infobox, translated into English with AI assistance, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.