WPR15LA219 · Garlick UH1H
LRH Equipment Garlick UH1H · Accident: loss of lift while maneuvering
From Walla Walla, WA to Walla Walla, WA
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR15LA219
- 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
Garlick UH1H
- Aircraft type
- Garlick UH1
- 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
- N121PT
- Operator
- LRH Equipment
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Walla Walla, WATo Walla Walla, WA
- Aircraft age
- About 51 years (built 1964)
- 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 lift
- 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
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Environmental issues › Conditions/weather/phenomena
- Not determined › Not determined
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that the helicopter was in a 165-ft hover in a narrow creek valley, over a shallow creek and that he was filling a fire bucket, which was attached to the helicopter via a long line. The terrain rose between 200 and 400 ft on either side of the creek. About 1 minute into the hover, the pilot felt the helicopter start to settle. He applied collective to arrest the settling, but the helicopter continued to settle. The pilot said that there was no yaw or unusual vibration or noise during the event, only a smooth settling of the helicopter and that the engine did not respond when he manipulated the collective. He immediately lowered the collective and performed a hovering autorotation toward an embankment. When the pilot raised the collective for the landing, the engine did not respond. The rotors struck several trees, then the helicopter spun 180°, landed hard, and rolled over onto its right side. After the accident, the engine continued to run until the pilot shut off the fuel and secured the battery. The helicopter was destroyed by postcrash fire.
Postaccident examination of the helicopter did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation. Examination of the engine revealed compressor blade damage, rotational scoring witness marks, and metal splatter, consistent with the engine operating at the time of the accident.
An automated surface observation system (ASOS) located 10 miles west of the accident reported that, about 1 hour before the accident, the wind was from 250°, gusting to 22 knots. An unofficial weather station located 6 miles southwest of the accident site recorded that, about 3 minutes before the accident, the wind was from 239o at 20 knots, gusting to 30 knots. The ASOS reported that, about 13 minutes after the accident, the wind was from 239o at 14 knots. Given these conditions, orographic wind turbulence could not be ruled out as a factor.
Probable cause
The helicopter’s reduction in aerodynamic lift while operating in variable wind conditions for reasons that could not be determined because postaccident examination did not reveal any evidence of preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR15LA219
- Event ID
- 20150721X35946
- Case number
- WPR15LA219
- 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. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2015-07-21.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8b21c42842828eb7704f794ee7f3fa6def14e9749d609b6ece061a7e11f6c751; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:33:13.442Z.