Bell 47G N5990

Summary

On 6 May 2019 at about 15:20 local time, a Bell 47G registered N5990 was involved in an accident near Denton, Texas, United States. 2 people were 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

6 May 2019 at 15:20

Classification

Accident

Location

Denton, Texas, United States

Nearest airport

Denton Enterprise (DTO)

Coordinates

33.2022, -97.1981

Aircraft

Bell 47G

Registration

N5990

Category

Helicopter

Year built

1992

Engines

1

Operator

Not recorded

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Instructional

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Denton → Denton

Aircraft damage

Substantial

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

GAA19CA250

Nobody was injured.

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.

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

Read the full 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.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.