DEN01FA058 · Bell 412SP
Petroleum Helicopters Bell 412SP · Accident: loss of control in flight en route
From St Mary's Hospital & Medical Center Heliport (29CO) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN01FA058
- 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
- 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
Bell 412SP
- Aircraft type
- Bell 412
- 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
- N412SM
- Operator
- Petroleum Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From St Mary's Hospital & Medical Center Heliport (29CO), Grand Junction, COTo 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
- En route · descent
- 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 · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During a test flight, following maintenance on the helicopter, which required a functional flight check for vibration and autorotation, the helicopter was observed by witnesses to enter a rapid descent. During this maneuver, the rotor system was observed to slow down and the rotor blades to "fold" over the top of the helicopter. Pieces, which were later identified as fragments from the transmission cowling, were observed exiting the helicopter when the rotor system slowed down. The helicopter descended into the ground in a right hand turning maneuver. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of either a structural or system failure or malfunction. According to the helicopter's manufacturer, as the main rotor system slows while under aerodynamic load, the main gear box can "walk" (horizontal orbital movement) on its mounting structure, which can result in contact between the transmission cowling and the main rotor control rod ends. Examination of the engines revealed evidence that engine power was applied when the rotor system was at low rotational speed. No evidence of preimpact engine failure or malfunction was found. According to available information, the pilot had received no training from the operator regarding the conduct of a maintenance test flight, not does the FAA require such training.
Probable cause
the pilot's failure to maintain rotor speed during an intentional autorotation, which resulted in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN01FA058
- Event ID
- 20010320X00611
- Case number
- DEN01FA058
- 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: 9cfb7c4210f96d733dd6733497475f493d66128542fb30d74670718c37aefc9e; retrieved 2026-09-20T20:38:36.320Z.