NYC02LA099 · Boucher Revolution Mini 500
Boucher Revolution Mini 500 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure during initial climb
From Sterling Airport (3B3) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC02LA099
- 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
Boucher Revolution Mini 500
- Aircraft type
- Boucher REVOLUTION MINI 500
- 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
- N54VP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Sterling Airport (3B3), Sterling, MATo 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Maintenance, alignment › Not maintained
- Pilot in command › Height/velocity curve, low
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 hover-taxied the helicopter from its tiedown spot to a grassy area for takeoff. Upon reaching the grassy area, he initiated a takeoff, and the helicopter accelerated through effective translational lift and began to climb. About 30 feet and 25 mph, the rotor system drive belt broke. The helicopter yawed to the left, and the pilot immediately lowered the collective and applied right rudder to correct the yaw. The helicopter impacted the ground "straight ahead but tail down." The main rotor deflected downward, and a rotor blade stuck the tail boom. The helicopter's right skid collapsed, and the helicopter rolled over on its right side and caught on fire. A section of drive belt, about 46 inches in length, had "broomstraw" separations at both ends. On the toothed side of the belt, there were about 15 areas along one edge that were worn down or missing. Another section of belt, about 40 inches in length, also had broomstaw separations at both ends, although one end had considerably less. The belt was missing material its entire length, with the missing material varying between 1/2 to 3/4 the width of the belt.
Probable cause
A misalignment of the rotor system drive belt, which resulted in belt chaffing, its subsequent separation, and a resultant loss of power to the rotor system. Also causal was the relatively low altitude and airspeed at which the separation occurred, which inhibited the pilot's inability to maintain a level attitude during the autorotation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC02LA099
- Event ID
- 20020625X00965
- Case number
- NYC02LA099
- 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: 753151ba958f9ec7f68113a58d0cfe25d9a2077e559198a2aa2c686a17a980af; retrieved 2026-09-22T10:51:45.000Z.