CHI90DTG02 · Hiller UH-12-E
Hiller UH-12-E · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI90DTG02
- 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 UH-12-E
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N133HA
- Operator
- Morten, Shawn B. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Pilot in command › Directional control, not possible
- Rotorcraft flight control, tail rotor cable › Failure, total
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
DURING THE TAKEOFF TRANSITION TO FORWARD FLIGHT THE HELICOPTER PILOT FELT THE LEFT ANTITORQUE PEDAL GO TO THE FLOOR, AND THE HELICOPTER BEGAN TO ROTATE UNCONTROLLED. THE PILOT MANEUVERED THE HELICOPTER TO A CLEAR AREA AND ATTEMPTED TO LAND. UNCONTROLLED CONTACT WAS MADE WITH THE TERRAIN. THE INVESTIGATION REVEALED THAT THE LEFT TAIL ROTOR CONTROL CABLE HAD FAILED DUE TO OVERLOAD IN AN AREA WHICH HAD BEEN SUBJECT TO MECHANICAL ABRASION.
Probable cause
THE FAILURE OF THE HELICOPTER TAIL ROTOR CONTROL CABLE. A FACTOR RELATED TO THE ACCIDENT WAS THE CHAFING OF THE TAIL ROTOR CONTROL CABLE.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI90DTG02
- Event ID
- 20001212X23925
- Case number
- CHI90DTG02
- 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: 6e713c65277d162cda350ae86d764ac8b6909a013699b625ad117a5e479375aa; retrieved 2026-09-23T05:27:49.459Z.