WPR11FA239 · Brantly B-2B
Brantly B-2B · Accident: inflight upset en route
From Hayfork Airport (F62) to Lonnie Pool Field Weaverville Airport (O54)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR11FA239
- 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
Brantly B-2B
- Aircraft type
- Brantly B-2
- 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
- N222DW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hayfork Airport (F62), Hayfork, CATo Lonnie Pool Field Weaverville Airport (O54), Weaverville, CA
- 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
- 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
- Inflight upset
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The student pilot’s solo flight endorsement prohibited flight in gusty wind conditions such as those existing at the time of departure along his route of flight and at his planned destination. Additionally, his route of flight would have been over mountainous terrain, which would have further exacerbated the conditions and resulted in updrafts, downdrafts, and turbulence at his flight altitude. A witness, who was located close to the accident site, reported unusually strong wind for the area at the time of the accident. The pilot did not request a weather briefing prior to the flight.
The wreckage distribution was consistent with a level impact with trees in the direction of flight. No indications of an in-flight breakup, bird strike, or fire were present, and damage to the main rotor system was consistent with it operating at a high level of rotational energy. The throttle was noted in the closed position, consistent with an autorotation event; however, it is possible the pilot may have closed the throttle just prior to, or during, the impact sequence.
The student pilot had received about 120 hours of helicopter flight training over the 3 1/2-year period prior to the accident. (The pilot's flight logbook had been defaced, thus an accurate assessment of his total flight experience was not possible.) During that time, he had used the services of about nine flight instructors, with only the last instructor endorsing him for solo flight about 2 weeks before the accident. The accident flight was most likely his second solo flight in the accident helicopter. Acquaintances and previous instructors recounted that the pilot often exhibited poor decision-making traits, was headstrong, stubborn, and overconfident.
Although the pilot performed maintenance and unapproved modifications to the helicopter, the modifications did not appear to have been causal to the accident, and a postaccident examination did not reveal any anomalies with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The student pilot's decision to fly in windy conditions that exceeded his capabilities, which resulted in his subsequent loss of helicopter control. Contributing to the accident was his lack of flight experience in the accident helicopter.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR11FA239
- Event ID
- 20110528X94407
- Case number
- WPR11FA239
- 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: 7541181d0c52f5ed6d17e48e1841c9dea5e085f8e0ab62b68bb9713dc90a8a3d; retrieved 2026-09-13T21:26:25.126Z.