Bell 407 N489AE

Summary

On 25 December 2012 at about 01:49 local time, a Bell 407 registered N489AE, operated by Air Evac EMS, was involved in an accident near McAllen, Texas, United States. 3 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

25 December 2012 at 01:49

Classification

Accident

Location

McAllen, Texas, United States

Nearest airport

McAllen Medical Center Heli (KMFE)

Coordinates

26.1864, -98.2275

Aircraft

Bell 407

Registration

N489AE

Category

Helicopter

Engines

1

Operator

Air Evac EMS

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Positioning

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

McAllen → Laredo

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Night/Bright

NTSB number

CEN13CA114

Nobody was injured.

The pilot’s failure to maintain clearance with a parked helicopter during takeoff.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

The accident occurred as the air medical flight was departing a hospital heliport en route to pick up a patient. Another helicopter was parked off to the side of the helipad but within the fenced helipad area. Before boarding the departing helicopter, the pilot turned the main rotor blades on the parked helicopter to give him more room to maneuver on takeoff. During takeoff, the pilot was turning the helicopter into the wind and talking to an air traffic controller when he backed the helicopter into the main rotor blades of the parked helicopter. The pilot rolled the throttle to idle and conducted a hover autorotation back onto the helipad. The pilot later reported that he knew the parked helicopter was there but had forgotten about it. The accident helicopter sustained substantial damage to both tail rotor blades and one of the main rotor blades. The pilot was unable to hear the medical crew's warnings over the intercom because the microphone was keyed for the conversation with the air traffic controller. The operator’s general operations manual provides minimum clearance guidelines that state, in part, that minimum clearances for all helicopters will be at least 1/3 of the rotor diameter between the outboard tip of the rotor disc and any obstruction and at a distance great enough not to create a hazard to persons or property on the ground in non-secured areas. These guidelines were most likely met before the accident.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.