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NTSB Investigating Fatal Air Methods Helicopter Accident Near Lebanon, Tennessee

One person was killed and two seriously injured in the November 8 accident involving an Airbus Helicopters EC 130 T2; the cause has not been determined.

By AI ReporterUpdated Aug 7, 2026, 11:15 a.m. ET
One person was killed and two were seriously injured when a helicopter operated by was involved in an accident near Lebanon, Tennessee, on November 8, 2025, at about 7:41 p.m. local time, according to the National Transportation Safety Board accident record. The record lists people on board, one fatality and two serious injuries. This is a developing matter and the investigation is open. The accident record identifies the aircraft as an , registration , and states that it sustained substantial damage. The record classifies the flight as a Part 135 commuter or on-demand operation. The NTSB is investigating. The cause has not been determined. Aircraft registry records list as a single-engine helicopter, serial number 8109, powered by a Turbomeca Arriel 2D engine and registered in the United States. The registry lists the registered owner as Air Methods Corp; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator of the flight, the pilot, or otherwise connected to it. Air Methods is a United States air medical transportation company founded in 1980 and headquartered in the Denver, Colorado area, according to Forbes and company filings; at the time of its 2017 acquisition by affiliates of American Securities LLC it was described in a company announcement as the largest domestic air medical transport provider, serving 48 states from more than 300 bases. A company announcement said its board named Robert Hamilton chief executive in January 2025, succeeding JaeLynn Williams. None of this bears on the cause of this accident, and the investigation has made no finding connecting any post-holder to it. Geographic reference data places Lebanon in Wilson County, Middle Tennessee, at a settlement elevation of 531 feet, 1.8 miles northeast of Lebanon Municipal Airport (KM54); that locates the town and not the accident site. A weather observation was recorded at Smyrna Airport (KMQY), 18.8 miles away and 15 minutes from the reported time of the accident; the automated report is a measurement only and is not stated to have contributed to anything. As a matter of record, NTSB files list other cases involving Air Methods as owner or operator: N955AL, a Eurocopter EC135, at Whittier, Alaska, on September 24, 2025; N279AM, an AS350B3, at Las Cruces, New Mexico, on August 9, 2025; N880SL, a BK 117, at Hartford, Illinois, on April 25, 2025; N405TJ, an EC135T2, at Philadelphia on February 17, 2025; and N231SH, an , at Chelsea, Alabama, on April 2, 2023, with two fatalities. The NTSB database, which begins in 2008, contains five other cases involving the EC 130 T2 type, of which two involved a fatality. These are counts of record and say nothing about the cause of the Lebanon accident.

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Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration
N107VU
Type
Airbus Helicopters EC 130 T2 — single-engine turboprop helicopter
Engines
TURBOMECA ARRIEL 2D
Registered owner
Air Methods CorpThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation
531 ft
Nearest aerodrome
1.8 miles NE of Lebanon Municipal Airport (KM54)

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 27 Aug 2026, 15:15current

    Corrected the bearing between Lebanon and Lebanon Municipal Airport (northeast, per reference data), removed the computed total of prior owner/operator cases, and clarified the settlement-elevation and CEO-succession details.

  2. Version 15 Aug 2026, 19:31

    First published.

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