CEN13FA415 · Bell UH-1H
Billings Flying Service Bell UH-1H · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Dove Creek, CO to Dove Creek, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN13FA415
- 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
Bell UH-1H
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-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
- N775AR
- Operator
- Billings Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Dove Creek, COTo Dove Creek, CO
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1977)
- 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 133: Rotorcraft Ext. Load
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 › Fluids/miscellaneous hardware
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The helicopter pilot flew inbound to a seismic survey location hoisting a basket load with a long-line rope. The pilot overshot the intended drop site, and the basket load and long-line impacted the ground after the pilot likely initiated a load release. The helicopter then entered a right bank, followed by a steep left bank, and subsequently impacted the ground.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter revealed evidence consistent with a loss of hydraulic fluid from the flight control system due to a hydraulic leak of a check valve fitting near the tail rotor servo. As the pilot approached the survey location, the loss of hydraulic pressure most likely resulted in very-high collective control forces and pilot-induced oscillations. The director of maintenance stated that the pilot and a mechanic were aware of the hydraulic fluid leak and had ordered replacement parts; however, they had not yet been installed. He stated that they did not expect the leak to cause a significant issue. Thus, it is likely that they did not foresee the leak causing a significant flight hazard.
Probable cause
Pilot-induced oscillations caused by the loss of hydraulic assist of the flight controls due to an excessive loss of hydraulic fluid during a critical phase of flight, which resulted in ground impact. Contributing to the accident was an inadequate analysis of the hydraulic fluid leak by the pilot and mechanic.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN13FA415
- Event ID
- 20130716X92622
- Case number
- CEN13FA415
- 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: 0512e840ce4b6a21ae1ff5c522395c22edf3664303b18a351b29208d4f8947b1; retrieved 2026-09-14T16:00:43.117Z.