IAD98LA024 · Kaman K-1200
Kaman K-1200 · Accident: roll over during landing
From Kaman Aerospace Corp Heliport (CT05) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD98LA024
- 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
Kaman K-1200
- Aircraft type
- Kaman K-1200
- 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
- N135KA
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kaman Aerospace Corp Heliport (CT05), Bloomfield, CTTo 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
- Roll over
- 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
- Pilot in command › Aircraft control, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Bloomfield, CT, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was on a familiarization flight of a new helicopter. He had successfully completed hovering, several takeoffs and landings, and two hovering autorotations. He had to discontinue his maneuvers in the traffic pattern due to traffic, so he requested to use the pad near the plant. During a hovering autorotation at 5 feet AGL, the helicopter suddenly drifted to the left. Despite his efforts correcting with right cyclic, the helicopter continued to roll to the left. It touched down on the left main landing gear, followed by the nosewheel, and came to rest on its left side. Of the 12 hours the helicopter had accumulated, the pilot had 9 hours in this make and model. Examination of the wreckage did not disclose any evidence of mechanical malfunction with the helicopter or engine, and the pilot did not report any.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control during autorotation, which resulted in an unleveled attitude touchdown, roll over, and collision with the ground.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD98LA024
- Event ID
- 20001211X09455
- Case number
- IAD98LA024
- 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: e3661fdd1214046c5faebdd85baef8fed99cff75e62f0ea26f8487b25e5e4d3d; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:57:09.125Z.