CEN14LA418 · Texas Helicopter Corp OH 13H/M74A G
Texas Helicopter Corp OH 13H/M74A G · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Little Falls, MN to Little Falls, MN
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN14LA418
- 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
Texas Helicopter Corp OH 13H/M74A G
- Aircraft type
- Texas OH-13
- 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
- N51853
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Little Falls, MNTo Little Falls, MN
- Aircraft age
- About 36 years (built 1978)
- 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 137: Agricultural
- 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 control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Tree(s)
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting an aerial application flight. A witness reported observing the helicopter crossing over a highway that bordered a large field that the helicopter was spraying. The witness added that the helicopter was about three-quarters of the way down the field when it appeared to "hop." As the helicopter ascended, it appeared to veer right, and it then continued to ascend to about twice the height of nearby trees while rapidly spinning in circles. The witness lost sight of the helicopter when his vehicle passed trees alongside the road. After passing the trees, the witness looked back and saw smoke coming from a farm building.
During an examination of the accident scene, a portion of one of the tail rotor blades was found at the base of a tree located on the west edge of the field. Cut and broken branches were found distributed westward from the tree along the ground. The helicopter was found embedded in the roof of a metal building about 70 yards west of the tree. An examination of the helicopter systems revealed no preimpact anomalies. It is likely that, on completion of his aerial application pass, the pilot did not pull the helicopter up in time to avoid the tree located at the edge of the field that he was spraying.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from a tree at the edge of a field that he was spraying.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN14LA418
- Event ID
- 20140811X54554
- Case number
- CEN14LA418
- 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: 06d9cab708ddc94e5bd5ef3da5e6e2f0cae13e36bae7aa60f93547fba3a025d6; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:23:32.965Z.