FTW97GA350 · Bell OH-58A
Bell OH-58A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- FTW97GA350
- 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
- Government
- 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 OH-58A
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N149SD
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Fort Worth Meacham International Airport (FTW), Fort Worth, TXTo 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Maneuvering
- 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 › Adequate rotor RPM, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter collided with the ground after it descended from level flight in a right rotating turn. According to witnesses, the helicopter landed and tookoff after a few minutes on the ground. The helicopter circled the airport and was headed upwind about 500 feet above the ground when it pitched up, 'hovered for an instant' and descended to the ground. Examination of the helicopter did not disclose evidence of mechanical malfunction. The filament of the low rotor rpm warning light bulb was stretched, which was indicative that it was on at the time of impact. Acoustic analysis of a video tape recording of the accident revealed the rotor rpm during the descent was 80 percent (normal operating range 90-107 percent). According to the helicopter manufacturer, under the given conditions, at a gross weight of 3,250 pounds, and a height of 500 feet, a hover out of ground effect can be accomplished. The estimated gross weight of the helicopter was 2,750 pounds.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain adequate rotor rpm which resulted in a loss of aircraft control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record FTW97GA350
- Event ID
- 20001208X08833
- Case number
- FTW97GA350
- 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: 91751a774cfec3eaac81ba106310535227de1dd4791bc4375721e03b907a8ca9; retrieved 2026-09-18T14:37:00.401Z.