Pilot Debrief

BELL 47G near Denton, TX — 2019-05-06

Final reportGAA19CA250
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Date
2019-05-06
Location
Denton, TX, USA
Airport
DTO
Aircraft
BELL 47G
Registration
N5990
Category
Helicopter
Highest injury
None
Fatalities
0
Phase of flight
Hover

Probable cause

The flight instructor's improper decision to instruct the student pilot to establish a hover and reposition the helicopter with a tailwind, which resulted in the student pilot's loss of pitch control.

NTSB narrative

The student pilot reported that he hovered the helicopter to the parking pad and landed with the helicopter's nose facing north. The skid placement on the parking pad was incorrect, and the flight instructor directed the student to reposition the helicopter about 3 ft to the left. The student brought the helicopter to a hover and repositioned it 3 ft to the left. However, before the student established a descent and landed, the helicopter encountered a tailwind gust. The nose pitched down, the rotor rpm decreased, and the helicopter traveled about 75 ft forward. The skids contacted the ground hard, and the helicopter came to an abrupt stop, upright and facing downslope. The main rotor blades struck the tail rotor drive shaft and the tailboom. The tail rotor gear box and the tail rotor separated from the helicopter. The helicopter sustained substantial damage to the tail rotor drive system, the tailboom, and the main rotor blades. The pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. The airport's METAR reported that, about the time of the accident, the wind was from 180° at 15 knots and that the cloud layer was broken at 800 ft.

Analysis

Primary failure mode
Human factors
First missed decision gate
Student could have aborted the repositioning due to wind conditions.

NTSB coding

Evidence available

  • Photos
  • 2 docket documents
View NTSB final reportView NTSB docket

Docket documents2

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