IAD00LA037 · Greenleaf EXEC 162F
Greenleaf EXEC 162F · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
From HEF to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- IAD00LA037
- 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
Greenleaf EXEC 162F
- Aircraft type
- Greenleaf 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
- N162GG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From HEFTo 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
- Approach · VFR pattern final
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Control interference, inadvertent
- Rotorcraft flight control, collective control › Blocked(partial)
Approximate · Estimated position: the centre of Manassas, VA, the place the record names. Not the accident site.
NTSB narrative
The pilot/owner/builder of the homebuilt helicopter departed on a local flight. He completed a traffic pattern, and initiated an approach to the ground. During the final segment of the approach, the pilot found the collective control stick difficult to lower, and the movement restricted. The pilot forced the collective to the full-down position, and the helicopter contacted the ground and rolled over. A 25-pound metal barbell plate was found in the foot well on the copilot's side after the accident. The surface of the plate was lightly coated with rust. Examination of the copilot's seat cushion revealed rust colored transfers on the fabric. The seat pan exhibited circular scratches that measured the same radius as the barbell plate. The collective stick was raised, and the barbell plate was placed so that it was superimposed over the scratches. The collective stick was lowered, it contacted the plate, and approximately the bottom 1/3 of the collective stick travel could not be attained. The pilot explained that on the advice of the kit factory, a 25-pound weight could be added to the co-pilot's side to assist the pilot in achieving a more wings-level vertical ascent to a hover. He said: 'A 25-pound weight in the right seat worked fine. I flew with it all the time. It was secured by the seat belt. On the last flight it was not secured. I just put it on the seat because it was so heavy.'
Probable cause
Was the pilot' use of an unsecured ballast weight in the cockpit that shifted in flight and blocked the collective control movement.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record IAD00LA037
- Event ID
- 20001212X20831
- Case number
- IAD00LA037
- 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: c51463c517961425b5cb312718fead4aee5b5b067098983378b97609449d2136; retrieved 2026-09-21T20:15:20.314Z.