ANC07LA062 · Hiller UH-12E
Prism Helicopters Hiller UH-12E · Accident: in flight collision with terrain/water during landing
From Terra Camp, AK to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC07LA062
- 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
- N146ET
- Operator
- Prism Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Terra Camp, AKTo 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
- Landing
- 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
- In flight collision with terrain/water
- 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 › Clearance, not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The solo commercial certificated pilot was attempting an off-airport landing on rough/uneven terrain under Title 14, CFR Part 91. The pilot reported that he was attempting a toe-in landing to pickup passengers, and about one foot above the ground he heard a loud bang, and the helicopter yawed to the right. The tail rotor separated from the helicopter, and the helicopter descended uncontrolled, impacting the ground, damaging the tail rotor, tail boom, fuselage, and main rotor system. During a postaccident inspection of the site, the pilot reported finding an area of disturbed snow, where the tail rotor struck the glacier. He described the conditions as wind shifts up to 180 degrees, gusting 10-15 knots, density altitude 7,000 feet, and marginal flat light on a snow-covered glacier. A passenger waiting to be picked up reported that it looked like a gust of wind pushed the tail of the helicopter to the right, and the tail rotor struck a snow bank.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a glacier, which resulted in a tail rotor strike during landing, and damage to the helicopter during an emergency descent/landing on rough/uneven terrain. Factors contributing to the accident were variable and gusty wind conditions.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC07LA062
- Event ID
- 20070711X00901
- Case number
- ANC07LA062
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2007-07-10.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4ef7fae7ca59e36c784de3e2cdd84ec9ebd3400b64590e0badc78096e9fd15cc; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:40:22.980Z.