ERA13LA087 · Rotorway DB-1
Rotorway DB-1 · Accident: powerplant system/component malfunction/failure while maneuvering
From Carey Airport (TN56) to Carey Airport (TN56)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13LA087
- 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
- 0
- 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
Rotorway DB-1
- Aircraft type
- Rotorway DB-1
- 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
- N828X
- Operator
- Barnett Douglas e
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Carey Airport (TN56), Mayland, TNTo Carey Airport (TN56), Mayland, TN
- 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
- 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
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft power plant
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was hover-taxiing an experimental amateur-built helicopter about 3 feet above ground level when the engine suddenly accelerated, and the helicopter started to gyrate violently. An engine power increase such as this is indicative of a high-side governor failure, which requires immediate reaction to maintain control of the helicopter. The pilot attempted to maintain control of the helicopter, but it began to drift to the left where his truck and trailer where parked. To avoid a collision with the truck, the pilot raised the collective to climb over the truck. Once clear of the truck, the pilot lowered the collective and landed on a downward slope. The helicopter impacted the ground with the right skid and rolled over on its left side, which resulted in the main rotor blades striking the ground.
The pilot, who was also the owner/operator, had installed an aftermarket governor and had logged a total of 0.5 hour in the helicopter before the accident. The governor was examined and appeared to have been installed correctly. It could not be determined why the governor failed. The pilot had attended transition training for this helicopter, but it did not cover governor failures.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain helicopter control following a high-side governor failure for reasons that could not be determined during postaccident examination.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13LA087
- Event ID
- 20121214X20343
- Case number
- ERA13LA087
- 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: 23b2a0ce055aa1d3c850c0398328ee1c21aa03eb2ed0903b1f73a2cebc2bfe0c; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:35:16.552Z.