Bell 206B-III N191RH

Summary

On 24 May 2002 at about 01:25 local time, a Bell 206B-III registered N191RH was involved in an accident near Moab, Utah, United States. One person was on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was substantially damaged. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

24 May 2002 at 01:25

Classification

Accident

Location

Moab, Utah, United States

Coordinates

38.5298, -109.5498

Aircraft

Bell 206B-III

Registration

N191RH

Category

Helicopter

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Positioning

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Harely B Ranch → Moab

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

DEN02LA046

Nobody was injured.

The pilot's failure to maintain rotor rpm during a forced landing. A contributing factor was fuel starvation.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

According to the pilot, he started the day with approximately 50 gallons of fuel on board. He departed from his home base, for a 10 minute flight to pick up several passengers, taking groups of them on 5 to 10 minute photo flights, for a total mission duration of approximately 80 to 90 minutes. After dropping off the last group, he returned to his home base. According to the fuel gauge, there was approximately 12 to 13 gallons of fuel remaining when he departed for the 10 minute repositioning flight back to his home base. Based on a fuel burn rate of approximately 25 gallons per hour, he calculated that he had 30 minutes of fuel remaining. He also stated that, due to noise abatement, he always approached his helipad at a "high airspeed and with a fast rate of descent and then about 100 feet, power up to make a high power, steep landing." Being "low on fuel," he did the same thing on this approach, starting his descent at approximately 80 to 100 knots. At 50 to 75 feet above ground level (agl), he initiated a 10 to 20 degree flare and began the descent to land. The fuel boost pump light illuminated, the "auto-relight" light came on, and the "engine out" light illuminated. His first thought was that he "ran the aircraft out of fuel." He realized that he was going too fast to land at his helipad. He adjusted his approach, and attempted to land in a parking lot just beyond his pad. He applied forward cyclic control, to level out the helicopter, hoping the boost pump light would go out and that the "auto relight" would reignite the fuel if it started pumping. The helicopter struck the ground hard with its right landing gear skid, bounced, slid forward approximately 15 feet, turned to its left approximately 90 degrees and slowly rolled over on its right side. The aircraft continued to turn to the left another 90 degrees and came to rest on its right side, facing 180 degrees from the direction of the approach. During the hard landing, the main rotor blades struck the tail boom, separating the vertical stabilizer, tail rotor and tail rotor gearbox. The main rotor hub and blade assembly was intact and remained attached to the main rotor mast.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.