A small plane made an emergency landing at Lancaster Airport in Lititz, Pennsylvania, on October 25th.
The pilot of the twin-engine Beechcraft BE58 plane declared an emergency after it hit a deer on take-off from the Wings Field Airport, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, resulting in damage to the landing gear.
The plane landed safely. All 4 people aboard remained unhurt.
A Pawan Hans chopper had to divert and make a precautionary landing in Kelva, Palghar, Maharashtra, India, on August 27th.
The Bell 407 flying from Vedodara, Gujrat to Juhu, Mumbai, was diverted due to bad weather conditions.
The helicopter landed safely. All 6 people onboard remained unharmed.
A helicopter crashed at a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) site in Graves County, Kentucky, on July 11th.
The Bell 407 helicopter went down while it was attempting to land at the site located between Paducah and Mayfield.
The pilot, who was the only one aboard, was killed in the crash. He was identified as John Love of Maryville, Tennessee. TVA authorities confirmed that Love had been an employee for 17 years.
The cause of crash is being investigated.
Two pilots died in the crash of the experimental Bell Helicopter 525 Relentless at 11:45 today. The names of the two pilots killed in the crash have not been released.
The helicopter crashed 45 miles south of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The FAA is en route, and the NTSB is investigating.
Read more about the Experimental Bell 525 Relentless Next Generation Helicopter here
The Bell 525 Relentless, featuring the ARC Horizon flight deck system, provides unparalleled crew situational awareness through the use of a fully integrated avionics flight deck coupled with an advanced fly-by-wire flight control system, resulting in enhanced safety levels and mission capabilities.
A Bell 206 helicopter crashed in Paniai district of Papua Province, Indonesia, on June 4th.
The aircraft went down when it was transporting three passengers from Nabire to a mining site in Degewo.
The pilot was killed in the crash while the passengers were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Spokesperson of Indonesia’s national police Agus Rianto said, “We have evacuated the passengers to the nearby city of Nabire so they could get medical treatment.”
The cause of crash is being investigated.
A Myanmar Air Force helicopter crashed into a reservoir near Meikhtila, Myanmar, on April 26th.
Authorities said the Bell-206 helicopter, that took off from Meiktila airport, was on a training exercise when it went down due to engine failure.
There were two pilots aboard at the time; both of them were rescued by fishermen.
The incident is being investigated.
A Bell 206 sightseeing helicopter crashed close to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Sevierville, Tennessee, on the afternoon of April 4th.
The helicopter caught fire right after hitting the ground. Five people lost their lives in the crash.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating the cause of crash.
A military helicopter crashed during an enemy chase mission in Poso District, Sulawesi, Indonesia, on March 20.
The Bell 412-EP was on its mission to capture Indonesia’s most wanted militant Abu Wardah Santoso when it went down and crashed.
At least 12 soldiers and officials aboard the helicopter lost their lives and one soldier went missing.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
A U.S. military helicopter made an emergency landing at Chofu Airport in Tokyo, Japan, on February 29th.
Authorities said the pilot of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois aircraft, belonging to the 459th Airlift Squadron at Yokota Air Base, declared emergency due to an engine warning light. The helicopter was on a routine local flight at the time.
The aircraft landed safely. All nine people aboard remained unhurt.
A Bell 206 helicopter crashed and sunk near the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 18.
The private helicopter went down while it was carrying five people, including the pilot and a family of four visiting from Canada.
All five occupants of the aircraft survived the crash. However, one of them – a 16-year-old boy- was trapped underwater and had to be extricated from his seat. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Authorities believe the helicopter belongs to tour operator Genesis Aviation.
The FAA and the NTSB are investigating the cause of crash.
A Venezuela National Guard helicopter crashed onto a parking lot in Paraguachon, La Guajira, Colombia, on December 28.
Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s top diplomat, said, “Adverse weather conditions led to this unfortunate accident. We thank Colombian authorities who provided support to the officers.”
There were two people aboard the Bell helicopter at the time; including the pilot and the co-pilot. Both of them were injured in the crash. They were taken to hospitals in Venezuela.
Colombia’s Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said, “”We will proceed through diplomatic channels with the government of Venezuela to establish where the wreckage will be sent.”
A TAP Air Portugal Airbus A320-214 was en route from Lisbon, Portugal to Amsterdam when it developed a problem with the air conditioning.
Pilots made an emergency landing in Paris at Orly airport.
None of the 72 passengers was injured.
However, an online twitter post assumed that the problem was an engine fire because an engine bell was heard during radio transmissions to ATC. There was no fire.
The DBS Helicopters Bell 206L-3 LongRanger III helicopter in Silt, Colorado, that got tangled in power cables doing Holy Cross Energy powerline inspections crashed, killing the pilot and crew.
The accident occurred at 11:20 a.m. where the shared Holy Cross and Xcel Energy power lines cross Dry Hollow Road about 1.6 miles south of Silt. There were witnesses who saw the accident and attempted to help.
The poles that were being inspected were fifty feet high, and the helicopter was supposed to be flying thirty feet over that.
The small fifty-foot debris field is on rough hilly terrain.
Owner and chief pilot for DBS Helicopters, Doug Sheffer died in the accident. He had 22 years and 8,000 hours of flight time. Larry Shaffer who worked for Holy Cross Energy and Christopher Gaskill who worked for HotShot Infrared Inspections were also fatalities. They were filming the trouble spots along the route, and recording the locations on GPS.
I do not want to diminish the tragedy of this accident by saying that helicopter accidents such as this are common, but I will say they happen too frequently, even when the pilot has significant experience flying in mountain terrain, and rescue.