WPR12LA244 · Hiller UH-12B
Larsen Helicopter Operations Hiller UH-12B · Accident: low altitude operation/event while maneuvering
From Tri Cities Airport (KPSC) to Tri Cities Airport (KPSC)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR12LA244
- 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
- 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
Hiller UH-12B
- Aircraft type
- Hiller UH-12
- 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
- N93467
- Operator
- Larsen Helicopter Operations
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Tri Cities Airport (KPSC), Pasco, WATo Tri Cities Airport (KPSC), Pasco, WA
- 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 · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Low altitude operation/event
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot of the helicopter was maneuvering at a low altitude over a fruit orchard to dry the trees. After completing one section of the orchard, he climbed higher in order to check for obstacles near the adjacent orchard that he planned to dry next. While descending into position to work the adjacent orchard, the pilot noticed that the main rotor rpm was beginning to decay. Although he added some power, the rpm decay continued. He therefore made the decision to lower the collective, but realized he was too low to do so. Because he still had some forward airspeed and was able to maintain a controlled descent, the pilot maneuvered to land in an opening between the trees; however, the helicopter impacted trees just before it touched down. A postaccident examination of the engine and airframe revealed no evidence of mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain the helicopter's rotor rpm while maneuvering at a low altitude over a fruit orchard.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR12LA244
- Event ID
- 20120604X40703
- Case number
- WPR12LA244
- 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. 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: d739648c0343570b0c7b40b284d208a4be4778b8c8cce69069f5c115b7d22034; retrieved 2026-09-15T18:22:19.881Z.