ERA13CA283 · Hughes TH-55A
DAH Aircraft Hughes TH-55A · Accident: settling with power/vortex ring state during initial climb
From Morgantown, WV (no airport) to Philippi Barbour County Regional Airport (79D)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA13CA283
- 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
Hughes TH-55A
- Aircraft type
- Hughes TH-55
- 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
- N7057H
- Operator
- DAH Aircraft
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Morgantown, WV (no airport)To Philippi Barbour County Regional Airport (79D), Philippi, WV
- 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
- Initial climb
- 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
- Settling with power/vortex ring state
- 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
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was attempting to reposition the helicopter from an off-airport site in advance of an approaching storm. Following an uneventful preflight inspection and engine start, the pilot climbed the helicopter into a hover and turned toward his intended departure path. He then pushed the cyclic control forward and increased the collective pitch in order to clear some approaching trees. The pilot then realized that “appropriate power” was not available, and turned right in order to avoid the trees. The helicopter subsequently settled with power and impacted the brush below, resulting in substantial damage to the airframe. The pilot reported that there were no pre-impact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the helicopter, nor were any discovered during a postaccident examination of the airframe and engine. The pilot additionally stated that the accident could have been prevented with “better situational awareness.”
Probable cause
The pilot’s inadequate planning which resulted in an encounter with settling with power and descent into terrain during takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA13CA283
- Event ID
- 20130613X82644
- Case number
- ERA13CA283
- 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: 57c3907da3223da6398d3ae5ce2cc2f0e30b40c946ef82a03ba7606779f25bd8; retrieved 2026-09-15T21:52:10.957Z.