DFW07FA198 · Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
Fairchild Hiller FH-1100 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Vicksburg Municipal Airport (VKS) to Cox Field (PRX)
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW07FA198
- 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
- 2 · 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
Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
- Aircraft type
- Fairchild Hiller FH-1100
- 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
- N313BG
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Vicksburg Municipal Airport (VKS), Vicksburg, MSTo Cox Field (PRX), Paris, TX
- 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 · cruise
- 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
- Rotor drive system, main rotor mast(drive shaft) › Bumped
- Rotor drive system, main rotor mast(drive shaft) › Separation
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot and pilot rated passenger were on a 1,620-nautical mile cross-country flight following the purchase of the accident helicopter. Following a fuel stop, they had progressed approximately 180 miles when the helicopter's main rotor and rotor hub assembly separated from the upper mast. The helicopter subsequently entered an uncontrolled descent and impacted the ground. There were no eyewitnesses to the accident. Examination of the main rotor mast fracture surfaces revealed signatures consistent with mast bumping. Though there was evidence of a mast bumping event, the initiating event is unknown. Examination of the wreckage disclosed no anomalies that would have prevented normal system operation and the engine displayed evidence of rotation at the time of ground impact. The cockpit also exhibited damage consistent with main rotor contact. On the day of the accident, the outer bands of a tropical storm made landfall on the Louisiana coast. However, automated weather observing systems located inland near the accident site were reporting visual meteorological conditions at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The in-flight separation of the main rotor mast while in cruise flight following a mast bumping event. The reason for the mast bumping event was not determined.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW07FA198
- Event ID
- 20070927X01463
- Case number
- DFW07FA198
- 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: b67dde47c24cbb8b73bbd9ac71f519997e2ca0a68c575b4439459f71f398363f; retrieved 2026-09-20T16:17:57.522Z.