NYC00LA022 · Godbout EXEC 162F
Godbout EXEC 162F · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Berlin, NH (no airport) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC00LA022
- 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
Godbout EXEC 162F
- Aircraft type
- Godbout EXEC 162
- 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
- N228CH
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Berlin, NH (no airport)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
- 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 › Rotor RPM, not maintained
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Milan, NH, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
After transiting to an area about 8 miles from its departure point, the homebuilt helicopter was observed making a low pass along a 5-mile trail. It then flew to a point about midway along the trail, where trail maintenance was taking place, and began maneuvering about 50 feet, over 50-foot trees. It entered a steep turn, there was a loud 'bang', and the helicopter descended almost vertically into the woods. The main wreckage was found upside down, and the tail boom was located about 150 feet away. There were paint transfer marks where the tail boom had separated, which matched the paint on the end of a main rotor blade. That blade exhibited downward bending near its inboard end, and upward bending near its outboard end. The blade's leading edge had impact marks and paint transfer marks from the tail boom. There was no evidence of in-flight blade failure or separation. Fuel was found onboard the helicopter, and the engine exhibited scoring marks consistent with a sudden stoppage. The student pilot had 64 hours of flight time, and had been to the kit manufacturer's facility three times for training. He had been endorsed for hovering flight, flight through translational lift and quickstops, provided he remained within 35 feet of the ground at all times. He had previously had an accident while hovering the helicopter. Another builder/pilot, who had flown with the student pilot, stated that his 'ability to maintain proper rotor rpm was a problem.' An onboard recording of throttle positions revealed that the throttle had been opened to 29 to 32 percent, for the first 4, of the last 5 minutes of flight, consistent with the helicopter transiting the area. From 56 seconds, until 6 seconds prior to the last recording, the throttle position was approximately 38 to 40 percent, consistent with the use of added power for maneuvering over the trees. Three seconds before the last recording, the throttle had been closed to 7 percent, before it was returned to 38 percent for the last two seconds of the recording.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain proper rotor rpm while maneuvering, which resulted in main rotor blade flapping, and its subsequent impact with the tail boom. A factor was the pilot's lack of experience in maneuvering flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC00LA022
- Event ID
- 20001212X20042
- Case number
- NYC00LA022
- 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: 3c39c12e90df160be041016fb72b5b3d1c6cc71b9d7574407c52472ea63b40a4; retrieved 2026-09-20T21:40:16.168Z.