MIA01LA055 · Hiller UH-12E
Hiller UH-12E · Accident while standing
From Cleveland, TN to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA01LA055
- 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
- Unknown
- 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-12E
- 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
- N112EC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cleveland, TNTo 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
- Standing · engine(s) operating
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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 › Unsafe/hazardous condition, used
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot, the externally slung, hydraulically operated fertilizer bucket stopped dispensing. With no ground handling crewman available, the pilot set the rotorcraft down to troubleshoot the problem. With engine rpm near maximum to run the hydraulic pump to its maximum output, the pilot climbed out of the left seat, onto the left skid to read the externally mounted hydraulic pressure gage. While egressing the cockpit, the pilot accidentally bumped the collective control to the "increase rotor pitch" position, and the rotorcraft became airborne without him aboard. The rotorcraft climbed to about 500 feet agl, in circling flight until the loaded fertilizer bucket began swinging in ever-divergent oscillations causing rotorcraft instability and eventual main rotor-to-boom strike and crash.
Probable cause
The PIC's failure to follow safe operating procedures for the maintenance of the rotorcraft's external aerial application equipment, resulting in inadvertent activation of collective as he egressed the rotorcraft, causing unmanned flight, in-flight break-up, and collision with terrain.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA01LA055
- Event ID
- 20010109X00066
- Case number
- MIA01LA055
- 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: d0e2b2f7d51ee39d0377e9e4cabf1158270229304cfc331a1ab2d92f317af3d4; retrieved 2026-09-22T12:14:41.367Z.