Pilot Debrief

YATES W/LAZAR M Safari Helicopter near Cedar Park, TX — 2009-09-13

Final reportCEN09CA584
Sign in to save
Date
2009-09-13
Location
Cedar Park, TX, USA
Airport
40XS
Aircraft
YATES W/LAZAR M Safari Helicopter
Registration
N555BB
Category
Helicopter
Highest injury
Minor
Fatalities
0

Probable cause

An in-flight separation of the tail rotor blades and the tail rotor gearbox for undetermined reasons.

NTSB narrative

The helicopter was approximately 400 feet above the ground on a normal straight-in landing to a paved runway. At an airspeed of 45 miles per hour the pilot heard a snap and the helicopter began to spin. The pilot entered an autorotation and said he was concentrating on just “trying to keep the helicopter as flat as possible”. The helicopter struck the trees in a nose-down attitude. There was no fuel spill and no postcrash fire. The helicopter was substantially damaged and the pilot, who was the only occupant, sustained minor injuries. The Texas State Trooper who responded said that the tail rotor gearbox was missing from the area of the main wreckage. By the next day residents in the area had found a single tail rotor blade and, several hundred feet away, they found the other tail rotor blade still attached to the tail rotor hub and tail rotor gearbox. Photographs of the separated tail rotor blade show that the skin had ripped away from all three blade grip bolt holes. A postcrash examination of the helicopter failed to reveal why the tail rotor blades and gearbox separated from the aircraft.

NTSB coding

Evidence available

  • 1 docket document
View NTSB final reportView NTSB docket

Docket documents1

Related mishaps