CEN09TA060 · Bell OH-58C
Bell OH-58C · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Heber Springs Municipal Airport/Charlie Evans Field (HBZ) to Heber Springs Municipal Airport/Charlie Evans Field (HBZ)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN09TA060
- 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 OH-58C
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N153GF
- Operator
- Arkansas Game and Fish Commision
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Heber Springs Municipal Airport/Charlie Evans Field (HBZ), Heber Springs, ARTo Heber Springs Municipal Airport/Charlie Evans Field (HBZ), Heber Springs, AR
- 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
- Maneuvering · hover
- Defining eventThe 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
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 the passenger were conducting a public use night surveillance flight. The pilot was wearing night vision goggles (NVGs) while operating over a large field approximately 150-feet above the ground on a westerly heading at 10 knots. The master caution light illuminated followed by the low rotor rpm light and low rotor RPM horn. The pilot lowered the collective pitch and descended straight down. The helicopter struck the ground hard in a nose low, left bank attitude. Examination of the helicopter revealed no pre-mishap mechanical deficiencies. The engine examination and limited test-run on a Rolls Royce approved test stand using a slave compressor did not reveal any deficiencies that would have prevented the engine from producing power at the time of the accident.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to execute a proper autorotation during a forced landing after a loss of rotor rpm for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN09TA060
- Event ID
- 20081116X80702
- Case number
- CEN09TA060
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: d81a1a96dfa90986b661115186016c36959c397790457a9b0fe43be21de42916; retrieved 2026-09-13T19:49:19.990Z.