2006 Mercy Air Bell 412 crash
The accident aircraft, Mercy Air 2, departs Mojave, CA in February 2005
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| Accident summary | |
|---|---|
| Date | December 10, 2006 |
| Summary | Crashed in fog |
| Site | Cajon Pass, San Bernardino County, California |
| Crew | 3 |
| Fatalities | 3 |
| Injuries (non-fatal) | 0 |
| Survivors | 0 |
| Aircraft type | Bell 412SP |
| Operator | Mercy Air Services, Inc. |
| Registration | N410MA |
| Destination | Southern California Logistics Airport, Victorville, California. |
The 2006 Mercy Air helicopter accident occurred on December 10, 2006, about 1755 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 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.
The Bell 412SP helicopter took off on a cross-country repositioning flight from Loma Linda University Medical Center (94CL), Loma Linda, California, at 1742, 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., d.b.a. 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 1800, 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 it difficult to locate the wreckage.
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