Final Report on the Serious Incident involving two Bristow Helicopters (Nig.) Ltd aircraft, Bell 412 helicopters with Registration numbers 5N-BGS, and 5N-BDD, at the Addax Base Helipad, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria on 12th November, 2009.

On the 12th November, 2009 at 0805hrs a Bell 412 Helicopter, 5N-BGS departed for the first operation of the day from Addax Base helipad, Calabar to Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar to pick up passengers for an offshore operation, and on completion of the flight returned to Addax Base Helipad at 0935hrs.

The PF lifted the helicopter to double the hover height, moved rearwards, descended back to hover height, initiated a left turn to face the opposite direction. During the turn the tail rotor struck the main rotor of a parked helicopter. 5N-BGS went into a spin, the PF closed the throttles to idle, controlled it to the deck and shutdown the engines.

There was no fatality and no fire outbreak.