CEN16LA058 · McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 600N
McDonnell Douglas Helicopter 600N · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
From Houston, TX to Angleton, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA058
- 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 600N
- Aircraft type
- McDonnell Douglas 600
- 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
- N607BP
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Houston, TXTo Angleton, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 17 years (built 1998)
- 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
- 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 control in flight
- 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
- Not determined › Not determined
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Before landing, the private pilot conducted an area reconnaissance in the helicopter about 300 to 500 ft above ground level (agl), and noted the wind was calm. While performing hover work about 15 ft agl, the helicopter pitched nose down, and the pilot pulled aft on the cyclic to recover. The helicopter then rolled to the right, and the pilot applied left cyclic. The pilot stated that the helicopter seemed to right itself, then "snap turned" to the right and entered a spin. The pilot then attempted to land the helicopter, and during the landing, the helicopter impacted terrain and rolled onto its left side. Examination of the airframe, flight controls, and engine revealed no anomalies that would have precluded normal operation, and the reason for the loss of control could not be determined.
Probable cause
A loss of control while hovering for reasons that could not be determined, because postaccident examination revealed no mechanical anomalies or failures that would have precluded normal operation.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA058
- Event ID
- 20151208X01729
- Case number
- CEN16LA058
- 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: e1034f3e05e66c4c7352028715034ec228def5129fe6f216d95de7f7c63c7828; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:01:06.949Z.