Caloundra Helicoper Centre Garlick TH1F accident
Garlick TH1F · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Canowindra to Canowindra
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR10WA110
- 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
- Unknown · led by another country; figures from NTSB notifications
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Garlick TH1F
- Aircraft type
- Garlick TH1
- 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
- VH-UHD
- Operator
- Caloundra Helicoper Centre
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From CanowindraTo Canowindra
- 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
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- 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
- 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
- Powerplant system/component 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On December 23, 2009, at 1850 local time, a Garlick TH-1F helicopter (modified Bell 204), Australian registry VH-UHD, registered to and operated by Coloundra Helicopter Center Pty, Ltd., collided with trees and terrain while maneuvering during an aerial fire fighting operations near Canowindra, Australia. The helicopter was substantially damaged. The pilot sustained serious injuries.
The investigation is under the jurisdiction of the Government of Australia. This report is for information purposes only and contains only information released by the Government of Australia. Further information pertaining to this accident may be obtained from:
Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) P.O. Box 967, Civic Square Canberra A.C.T. 2608 Australia
Tel: +612 6274 6054 Fax: +612 6274 6434
www.atsb.gov.au
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR10WA110
- Event ID
- 20100113X44458
- Case number
- WPR10WA110
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (5)
- 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: damage. 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: 2ffcf35b995c42bf1eaf10aba446e75fbcbad3440702d1955c9cdd84820374ae; retrieved 2026-09-15T13:37:30.376Z.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: damage. Narrative states the helicopter was substantially damaged when it collided with trees and terrain.