CEN13TA165 · Bell OH-58A
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Bell OH-58A · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness while maneuvering
From Cornudas, TX (no airport) to Cornudas, TX (no airport)
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
- CEN13TA165
- 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
- Government
- 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
Bell OH-58A
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N337PW
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cornudas, TX (no airport)To Cornudas, TX (no airport)
- 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
- Public Aircraft
- 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
- Loss of tail rotor effectiveness
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot and two passengers were surveying a preplanned transect about 50 to 100 feet above ground level with a 5- to 10-knot left crosswind and an indicated groundspeed of 30 to 35 knots. As the terrain began to rise, the pilot added power to clear a ridge. The pilot reported that, when the helicopter was about 100 feet from the top of the ridge, he heard a " slight pop" and that the helicopter began to yaw to the right. He added power to clear the ridgeline, which greatly increased the right yawing motion, and the helicopter began to spin. He stated that the helicopter crossed over the ridgeline backward and continued to spin before it contacted the ground and rolled over onto its left side. A passenger reported that, although the wind was about 10 knots when they started the survey, the wind speed increased when the helicopter reached the top of the ridge, and the pilot had to correct for it twice before the helicopter began to spin to the right. A postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. The helicopter was operating in an environment conducive to the loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE), and the unanticipated right yaw and subsequent spinning of the helicopter are consistent with LTE.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain directional control while operating in conditions conducive to a loss of tail rotor effectiveness.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13TA165
- Event ID
- 20130219X00240
- Case number
- CEN13TA165
- 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: 6b341d4da78c10e330571f42cc96c7d926ebb8edfdd7f698b2ba0d3bc35aefac; retrieved 2026-09-15T20:57:29.456Z.