ANC96FA099 · Rotorway EXEC 90
Rotorway EXEC 90 · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From Merrill Field (MRI) to Birchwood Airport (BCV)
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC96FA099
- 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
- 1 · 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
Rotorway EXEC 90
- Aircraft type
- Rotorway EXEC 90
- 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
- N9297H
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Merrill Field (MRI)To Birchwood Airport (BCV), BIRCHWOOD, AK
- 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
- Approach · VFR pattern downwind
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Lack of familiarity with aircraft
- Pilot in command › Rotorcraft flight controls, improper use of
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot had purchased a completed but disassembled helicopter kit from another builder. There was no information in the airplane's records to show that a construction log or inspection log was kept. Training records from the kit supplier show that the pilot had received 7.5 hours of training in the helicopter at the factory school. A video tape of the helicopter just prior to the accident shows the pilot using large cyclic inputs to maintain control during hovering practice. The helicopter is also filmed doing touch-and-go landings. The operating limitation issued by the FAA did not authorize touch-and-go landings at Merrill Field. While the helicopter is on the downwind leg of the traffic pattern, the video tape shows that the nose pitches up and the helicopter rolls to the right slightly. It remains in that position for approximately 1 second. The nose pitches down and the helicopter rolls to the left and descends to the ground out of control. The helicopter blades found installed on the helicopter did not meet service bulletin criteria; the pilot had purchased a complete set of mandatory service bulletins.
Probable cause
the pilot's excessive control inputs and the lack of familiarity with the helicopter. A factor associated with the accident was the pilot's failure to follow the prescribed operating limitations.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC96FA099
- Event ID
- 20001208X06130
- Case number
- ANC96FA099
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1996-07-16.
- API snapshot SHA-256: c5d313efbda7f97966fb04d81da4b58067f203e123cdbc72f9ef22389bda0aef; retrieved 2026-09-20T23:16:32.462Z.