ATL02TA083 · Hughes OH-6A
Hughes OH-6A · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Tampa International Airport (TPA) to Tampa International Airport (TPA)
Event
- NTSB case
- ATL02TA083
- 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
- Government
- 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
Hughes OH-6A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes OH-6
- 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
- N56TP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa Intern, FLTo Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa Intern, FL
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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 · hover out of ground effect
- 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 › Loss of tail rotor effectiveness, encountered
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, improper
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot brought the helicopter to a 400-foot hover so that his flight observer could observe some recently installed signs. As he began his transition to forward flight, the helicopter began an uncommanded right yaw. The pilot applied left pedal to stop the yaw but the helicopter continued to yaw. In an effort to correct the yaw condition the pilot entered an autorotation. The helicopter collided with the ground and bounced and came t o to rest on the left side in about three feet of water. Examination of the helicopter failed to disclose a mechanical malfunction or component failure. Advisory Circular 90-95 states in-part that, " Loss of Tail Rotor Effectiveness (LTE) is a critical, low-speed aerodynamic flight characteristic which can result in an uncommanded rapid yaw rate which does not subside of its own accord and, if not corrected, can result in the loss of aircraft control".
Probable cause
The pilot's improper planning/decision to conduct an out of ground effect hover in a tailwind environment, which resulted in the loss of tail rotor effectiveness and the subsequent in-flight collision with water.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ATL02TA083
- Event ID
- 20020417X00521
- Case number
- ATL02TA083
- 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, coordinates. 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: f0aa356b78bb321d4f51a51591fb18e7f4d854f4cafaa1b59219ec87563270f3; retrieved 2026-09-18T21:19:16.386Z.