WPR14LA341 · McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 500N N
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 500N N · Accident: loss of tail rotor effectiveness during takeoff
From Idaho Falls, ID to Idaho Falls, ID
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR14LA341
- 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
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 500N N
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 500
- 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
- N18GH
- Operator
- David Hansen
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Idaho Falls, IDTo Idaho Falls, ID
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, not marked as estimated; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he initiated a vertical climb in the helicopter to clear trees and a residential structure. When the helicopter was about 90 ft above ground level, it banked left and immediately began to rotate. The pilot made control inputs but was unable to regain control of the helicopter, so he initiated an autorotation. Subsequently, the helicopter impacted the ground and rolled over onto its right side. Postaccident examination of the airframe and flight control system revealed no evidence of any preexisting mechanical malfunction that would have precluded normal operation. Postaccident weight and balance and performance calculations revealed that, at the time of the accident, the helicopter was within weight and balance and performance limitations for an out-of-ground-effect hover.
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of helicopter control for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR14LA341
- Event ID
- 20140811X33946
- Case number
- WPR14LA341
- 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: local date, investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-08-12.
- API snapshot SHA-256: f2c5fdcd47b02b5e4f91036dd87e9a12339505514aaff3f66eb539d734cf9bd4; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:37:31.503Z.