The Bell 206 helicopter pilot reported that, after the fourth aerial application flight of the day, he landed at the airport in Big Pine, Florida, and positioned the helicopter near the autoloader boom truck.
He reduced engine power to flight idle and the ground crew began the loading process.
He verified the collective position was full down, set the cyclic friction to ON, and exited the helicopter to stretch while maintaining one hand on the cyclic.
Immediately after, while standing next to the helicopter, he heard two “loud bangs.” He immediately boarded the helicopter and shut it down while the ground crew secured the boom.
Upon further examination by maintenance personnel, it was determined that a main rotor blade struck the boom arm and that the main rotor blades were beyond the repair limitations, per the manufacturer’s guidance.
The director of aerial operations noted that the wind was 130º at 11 knots, gusting up to 19 knots. The helicopter was oriented with a southbound heading.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain helicopter control while it was being reloaded with the rotors turning in gusting wind conditions, which resulted in a rotor strike with ground equipment.
“Hot loading” (while running) is dangerous enough without exiting the aircraft. Especially in these windy conditions this seems unwise.
This April 2019 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
I myself , just like Mr Rich Appling would like to Know MORE specifics other than the obvious which normally is pretty self evident . When presented this way it really does very little to help me better understand “what happened” to cause “loss of control” or “did not maintain control” of said aircraft…WHY ?
You folks have a great publication, one that I’ve read for as long as I can remember. I particularly love the maintenance discussions. However I question why you continue to post anything from the NTSB. They very seldom get into the meat of why a particular accident occurred. If a plane performs a steep climb right after takeoff, then crashes in a stall/spin, their answer is invariably “pilot didn’t maintain control and exceeded the design angle of attach”. Well duh…… any student pilot would already know that. The question is WHY did he exceed the angle of attack. Did the seat slip backwards, was he drinking, showing off, was the control lock installed? The NTSB isn’t doing their job, so why patronize them?