NTSB CAROL · Event
Event ERA22FA279
Registry · N98F
FAA Aircraft Registry record.
Make / Model
BELL UH-1B
Year of manufacture
1962 · 60 years old at event
Engine
LYCOMING T53-L-11D (1100 hp)
Seats / Engines
6 seats · 1 engine
Last airworthiness date
20141205
ADS-B equipped
Yes — Mode-S ADA948
Registrant of record
PRESCOTT GORDON F
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the operator’s failure to adequately inspect the former military turbine powered helicopter, which allowed an engine issue to progress and result in a loss of engine power and a subsequent loss of control after the helicopter struck powerlines during a forced landing. Also causal to the accident were the following: 1) the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) inadequate inspection and maintenance standards for former military turbine powered aircraft operating with an experimental exhibition airworthiness certificate; 2) the operator’s use of those standards instead of more rigorous standards, which were readily available to the operator and previously used to inspect and maintain the helicopter; and 3) the FAA’s inadequate oversight of the operator, which did not detect the inherent risk associated with the operation.
Factual narrative
On June 22, 2022, about 1645 eastern daylight time, a Bell Helicopter UH-1B helicopter, N98F, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident in Amherstdale, West Virginia. About 15 minutes after the flight departed, the helicopter impacted two powerlines and a rock face during a forced landing, and a postcrash fire ensued. The pilot and five passengers were fatally injured. The helicopter was operated by MARPAT Aviation under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12
NTSB Findings
Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).
- — Organizational issues-Support/oversight/monitoring-Safety programs-Adequacy of safety program-FAA/Regulator
- — Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-Engine (turbine/turboprop)-Turbine section-Failure
- — Aircraft-Aircraft power plant-(general)-(general)-Inadequate inspection
- — Personnel issues-Task performance-Inspection-Scheduled/routine inspection-Owner/builder
- — Organizational issues-Management-Policy/procedure-Adequacy of policy/proc-Operator
- — Organizational issues-Support/oversight/monitoring-Oversight-Oversight of operation-FAA/Regulator
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_2022_ERA22FA279.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
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Related research
What the literature says.
Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (loss of control, maintenance). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.
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- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2026 · Journal article (IJAAA)
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- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article
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SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2024 · Journal article (JAAER)
Low-Resource Automatic Speech Recognition Domain Adaptation – A Case-Study in Aviation Maintenance
With timeliness and efficiency being critical in the aviation maintenance industry, the need has been growing for smart technological solutions that optimize and streamline the different underlying ta…
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