- Date
- April 30, 2026, 02:06 local (07:06 UTC)
- Place
- Chapmansboro, TN · LZ - school parking lot
- Injuries
- 4 uninjured
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Phase of flight
- Standing
- Aircraft
- N409AEBell Helicopter Textron Canada 206L-4
- Defining event
- Standing-engine(s) operating: Ground handling event
- Weather
- Visual (VMC) · Night
- Status
- Completed · report July 30, 2026
- Report
- Approved by Office Director
- Investigation class
- Class 4 - Basic report with no Prelim publish
- NTSB office
- Eastern Region Aviation
- Parties
- FAA/FSDO
- FAA report
- 20260430005769A
- Case key
- 202916
From the NTSB’s public API. By law, NTSB reports can’t be used as evidence in lawsuits over the accident.
On this page
Probable cause
Failure of the volunteer fire department personnel to properly monitor and secure a stretcher, which resulted in it rolling into the helicopter’s tail rotor.
Findings · 1
NTSB’s coded findings. Those marked are part of the probable cause; the rest are factors or other findings. Under each, the cases with the same finding.
Sequence of events
The events NTSB coded, in order, by phase of flight. The defining event is the one that best describes the accident. Under each, the cases with the same event anywhere in their sequence.
Analysis
The air medical helicopter had responded to a call for service, and after landing was sitting idle with the engine running and its rotors turning while the flight medical crew and two local volunteer fire department personnel transferred a patient from a stretcher into the helicopter. Once the patient was loaded, a flight medical crew member told the fire department volunteers they could leave the rotor disk area while they finished securing the patient inside the helicopter. A flight medical crew member then observed one of the volunteers move the stretcher back and away from the helicopter; however, the two volunteers did not leave the rotor disc area. A few moments later, a flight medical crew member watched the unattended and unsecured stretcher roll downhill toward the helicopter’s spinning tail rotor. The stretcher collided with the tail boom and the tail rotor resulting in substantial damage to both tail rotor blades and minor damage to the tail boom.
Aircraft
- Registration
- N409AE
- Reported as
- Bell Helicopter Textron Canada 206L-4
- Category
- Helicopter
- Serial number
- 52413
- Built
- 2010
- Airframe hours
- 8,971
- Engine
- Rolls-Royc 250-C30P, 650 horsepower, turbo shaft
- Damage
- Substantial damage
- Flight
- Other work use · Part 135
- Airworthiness certificate
- Standard, Normal
- Last inspection
- AAIP · April 15, 2026
- Flight plan
- Company VFR
- Equipment
- Electronic flight bag or handheld device, Electronic multifunction display, Electronic primary flight display, Satellite tracking device, ADS-B, Auto-pilot, Data recorder
Matched to the registry by N-number and the event date; the registry’s history has gaps, so older matches can be wrong. Compare the reported make and model.
Flight crew
As NTSB recorded them. NTSB leaves out names.
- Role
- Pilot
- Age
- 49
- Injuries
- None
- Certificates
- Flight instructor, Airline transport, Commercial
- Airplane ratings
- Single-engine land, Multi-engine land
- Instrument ratings
- Airplane, Helicopter
- Medical
- Class 2, Without waivers/limitations
- Last flight review
- November 1, 2025
- Seat
- Right
- Restraint
- 4-point
- Flight hours
- 4,821 total · 691 in this make and model · 2,691 as pilot in command · 50 in the last 90 days · 20 in the last 30 days · 1 in the last 24 hours
Weather
- Conditions
- Visual (VMC) · Night
- Wind
- 360° at 5 knots
- Visibility
- 10 statute miles
- Temperature
- 54 °F, dew point 46 °F
- Altimeter
- 29.95 inHg
- Observed at
- KJWN, 17 nm away
- METAR
- METAR KJWN 300655Z AUTO 36005KT 10SM FEW039 FEW046 12/08 A2995 RMK AO2
FAA reports on this event · 1
The FAA’s own accident and incident reports, matched to the aircraft by N-number and date.