ERA15LA296 · Bell 47G 3B 1
Ewing Flying Service Bell 47G 3B 1 · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) on approach
From Thomaston, AL (no airport) to Oak Hill, AL (no airport)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA15LA296
- 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
Bell 47G 3B 1
- Aircraft type
- Bell 47
- 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
- N4002G
- Operator
- Ewing Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Thomaston, AL (no airport)To Oak Hill, AL (no airport)
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1966)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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 systems
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The airline transport pilot was repositioning the helicopter in preparation for spraying operations the next day. He reported that, about 1/2 mile from the intended off-airport landing area, while at an altitude of 300 ft above ground level, the helicopter's cyclic control became very stiff, consistent with a hydraulic system failure. He continued the approach to the landing zone, which was a cleared area of forest that contained brush, fallen trees, and dirt mounds. During the approach, he unsuccessfully attempted to follow the procedure to relieve hydraulic system control pressure, which included turning off the hydraulic system switch, but was unable to remove his hands from the controls and also maintain control of the helicopter. He ultimately elected to land without turning off the hydraulic system switch. During the landing, a portion of the helicopter's agricultural spray boom contacted the trees and brush, and the helicopter yawed to the left. The helicopter then began to oscillate as its skids contacted the uneven ground and obstructions before it ultimately rolled over, impacted the ground and caught fire. Fire damage to the engine and hydraulic system components precluded a postaccident examination, and its mode of failure could not be determined.
Probable cause
A failure of the helicopter's hydraulic flight control systems for reasons that could not be determined due to the fire damage, and the pilot's inability to turn off the hydraulic system to relieve control pressure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA15LA296
- Event ID
- 20150805X95912
- Case number
- ERA15LA296
- 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: 464e16d77ef78c5317d6db359d07275427df67f66483f58bfc9432025e232881; retrieved 2026-09-16T02:37:49.234Z.