FTW96LA380 · Bell UH-1H
Idaho Helicopters Bell UH-1H · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Lake County Airport (LXV) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA380
- 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
- 0 · 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
Bell UH-1H
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N23Y
- Operator
- Idaho Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lake County Airport (LXV)To not recorded
- 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
- Landing · flare/touchdown
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Airspeed, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Altitude, inadequate
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, improper
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter crew was conducting high altitude flight tests pursuant to obtaining two Supplemental Type Certificates. From an altitude of 200 feet, and at 8,000 pounds gross weight, the pilot initiated an intentional autorotation at 42 knots with a one second delay before lowering the collective control. The pilot said he was unable to arrest the descent rate as the helicopter approached the runway at 40 knots. The helicopter was destroyed when it impacted the runway. A video camera was used to record the flight tests. A review of the tape disclosed that on at least two previous autorotations, the tail boom stinger struck the ground first. According to an FAA helicopter operations inspector, this was indicative that the pilot was 'outside the low end of the height-velocity curve.' He said that 'either there was insufficient airspeed for the altitude used, or there was insufficient altitude for the airspeed used.'
Probable cause
The pilot's improper inflight planning/decision in that he used an inadequate airspeed or an inadequate altitude, or both, for the intentional autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA380
- Event ID
- 20001208X06727
- Case number
- FTW96LA380
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (5)
- 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: 6bf3731b44c8ff3cf6c14f3417f07d2275ed60415585e273ffafd693ec60c32b; retrieved 2026-09-21T12:28:31.698Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. The narrative states "The helicopter was destroyed when it impacted the runway."