MIA96FA168 · Hiller FH-1100
Clearwater Helicopters Hiller FH-1100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From X41 · Odessa, FL to Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA96FA168
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 2 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Hiller FH-1100
- Aircraft type
- Hiller FH-1100
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N598F
- Operator
- Clearwater Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From X41 · Odessa, FLTo Orlando Sanford International Airport (SFB), Sanford, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Other maintenance personnel › Maintenance, compliance with ad, inadequate
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Fatigue
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter (N598F) was flying at about 750 to 1,000 ft, when witnesses heard a loud noise, then saw N598F descending & spinning to the right. N598F impacted the ground upright at the edge of a pond. Postcrash exam showed that a tail rotor blade had separated in flight, followed by the other tail rotor blade, hub, & gearbox. Metallurgical exam showed the tail rotor blade had separated due to fatigue fractures in 9 of 11 plates in the tail rotor blade torsion tension (TT) bar. Fatigue originated at machining discontinuities on the inner surfaces of eye holes at the bushing ends, which had been punched in the plates during the manufacturing process. In 1977, Airworthiness Directive (AD) 77-07-08 & Fairchild Hiller Service Bulletin (SB) FH1100-55-2A were issued to inspect for this problem. Records of N598F showed the AD & SB had been complied with on 3/9/77, but the tail rotor assembly had been removed & replaced with another assembly on 3/17/83. Records did not show if the AD & SB had been complied with on the replacement tail rotor assembly. Overhaul procedures did not allow disassembly of the TT bar to examine the holes. Weight & balance calculations showed that after tail rotor separated, the center of gravity moved about 2.1 inches forward of the forward limit. FH-1100 emergency procedure for tail rotor failure required that the pilot immediately reduce engine power to zero torque & perform an autorotative landing. Throttle was found in full power range. Helicopter was not equipped with shoulder harnesses.
Probable cause
inadequate compliance with AD 77-07-08 (and SB FH1100-55-2A) by other maintenance personnel, and subsequent fatigue failure of plates in the tail rotor torsion tension bar. Factors related to the accident were: manufacturing discontinuities (scoring/indentations) in holes of plates of the tail rotor torsion tension bars, and failure of the pilot to follow emergency procedures (reduce power to attempt an autorotative landing, following loss of the tail rotor assembly).
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA96FA168
- Event ID
- 20001208X06059
- Case number
- MIA96FA168
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: aede9411159e14a237175d3d124bba1349d89dde77503e5655596497602cad4a; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:18:14.147Z.