WPR09IA070 · MD Helicopter MD 900
Vulcan Aircraft MD Helicopter MD 900 · Incident: flight control system malfunction/failure during landing
From Kona, HI to Kamuela, HI
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09IA070
- 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
- Incident
- 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
MD Helicopter MD 900
- Aircraft type
- MD Helicopters MD-900
- 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
- N902AF
- Operator
- Vulcan Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Kona, HITo Kamuela, HI
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Flight control system malfunction/failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
A witness informed the flight crew that the helicopter "lost a panel" during landing. Inspection of the helicopter revealed that the lower right stabilizer (endplate) separated and was located approximately 70 feet from where the helicopter landed. The endplate was later recovered; however, the two associated attachment bolts were not. Without the bolts, it could not be determined if the attachments were not properly torqued or if the bolts' locking mechanism was no longer serviceable. The operator reported that the endplate was removed approximately 42 flight hours prior to the incident to facilitate a maintenance action on the horizontal stabilizer. Following the maintenance action and inspection, the endplate was reinstalled using the original attachment bolts. The applicable maintenance manual instructions for endplate installation directed maintenance personnel to secure the endplate to the spar tube and torque bolts to a specified value; however, it did not direct maintenance personnel to apply sealing and locking compound to bolt threads prior to installation. Following the incident, the manufacturer issued a mandatory Service Bulletin requiring the inspection of endplate bolts for serviceability and application of thread locking compound.
Probable cause
The separation of the endplate bolts for undetermined reasons, resulting in an in-flight separation of the right endplate. Contributing to the accident was the manufacturer's failure to provide sufficient guidance for endplate bolt installation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09IA070
- Event ID
- 20081230X10323
- Case number
- WPR09IA070
- 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: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2008-12-28.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 168c5800b2b12b2c7669f30ef912e1daab001209a0b928b0b8ff62dd9d9f7d44; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:38:54.090Z.