CEN15LA104 · Baker Bobby J SAFARI
Baker Bobby J SAFARI · Accident: aircraft structural failure en route
From Conroe, TX to Conroe, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN15LA104
- 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
Baker Bobby J SAFARI
- Aircraft type
- Baker Bobby SAFARI
- 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
- N416JB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Conroe, TXTo Conroe, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 5 years (built 2010)
- 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
- En route
- 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
- Aircraft structural failure
- 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 structures
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot was conducting a personal flight in the experimental, amateur-built helicopter. Several witnesses reported seeing the helicopter flying overhead. They reported that it appeared to by flying normally but that it then turned sideways, banked left, and descended to the ground. One witness reported hearing a breaking sound and then seeing the "back rotor" hanging from the helicopter.
The horizontal stabilizer was found separated from the tailboom. Postaccident examination revealed that the horizontal stabilizer spar tube had fractured at the weld area just outboard of the mounting flange. Examinations of the fracture surfaces revealed features consistent with fatigue cracking that had initiated at multiple origins along the weld toe. Although no weld defects or corrosion were noted at the fatigue origins, large areas of both fracture faces were covered by red and brown corrosion products, indicating that the cracks were present and exposed for a considerable amount of time (at least many days but more likely many weeks).
The fatigue origins were located on the aft surface of the spar and propagated generally forward. The origin location and direction of propagation were indicative of cyclic bending loads in the spar as if the tip of the stabilizer repetitively moved forward relative to the mount. The source of the cyclic bending loads was not clear but could have been the result of many different helicopter factors. These factors could have been unique to the accident helicopter or could be present on all similar helicopters. It is likely that the horizontal stabilizer separated in flight due to undetected fatigue cracking in the stabilizer spar, which resulted in the uncontrolled descent.
As assembled, the fracture location and weld were partially hidden by the horizontal stabilizer's airfoil skin and not directly visible, which would have made any cracking difficult to see. Following the accident, the kit manufacturer issued a mandatory inspection and modification bulletin for the horizontal stabilizer, which detailed inspection criteria and spar replacement guidance if cracking was found.
Probable cause
An in-flight separation of the helicopter’s horizontal stabilizer due to undetected fatigue cracking of the stabilizer spar, which resulted in a loss of control.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN15LA104
- Event ID
- 20150116X65836
- Case number
- CEN15LA104
- 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: 9f389149a7954d6e96037eb632562b0eb774275c03cfb695c5059ffe7bf2f0f8; retrieved 2026-09-14T17:31:11.280Z.