FTW96LA385 · Hiller UH12E
Hiller UH12E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From No airport to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW96LA385
- 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
Hiller UH12E
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH12
- 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
- N156HA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From No airportTo 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 137: Agricultural
- 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
- Fuselage, attachment › Disconnected
- Miscellaneous, dowel/pin › Disconnected
- Rotor system, tail rotor blade › Blade strike
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor control › Failure
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he had refueled the helicopter and loaded chemicals at a field location. About 1 minute after takeoff, he heard a 'loud bang,' followed by a vibration. A forced landing was initiated towards a dirt road. However, prior to landing, the helicopter began to 'spin.' Subsequently, the helicopter impacted trees in a 'slight nose low attitude.' An examination of the helicopter revealed that one tail rotor blade was separated approximately 10 inches from the hub. Further examination revealed the ballast weight which is located on the aft portion of the tailboom, partially disconnected. It was secured to the tailboom only by its forward retaining pin. The ground crew reported that the day prior to the accident, they had observed the ballast weight disconnected at its aft attaching point, and informed the pilot. The pilot reinstalled the ballast weight and secured it with the retaining pin. One of the ground crew also reported that 'the pin seemed to lock in place.'
Probable cause
The loss of tail rotor control as result of a tail rotor blade strike by a partially disconnected ballast weight, due to a disconnected pin. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW96LA385
- Event ID
- 20001208X06731
- Case number
- FTW96LA385
- 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: 174718eef3945aadb36ab8e3ce7787b563fed1894b05638648f241b53f6cbdfc; retrieved 2026-09-21T21:35:33.548Z.