GAA16CA258 · Bell OH 58 C
Wilbur Ellis Bell OH 58 C · Accident: hard landing during autorotation
From Waitsburg, WA to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA16CA258
- 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 OH 58 C
- Aircraft type
- Bell OH-58
- 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
- N543SD
- Operator
- Wilbur-Ellis
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Waitsburg, WATo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 46 years (built 1970)
- 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
- Autorotation
- 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
- Hard landing
- 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
- Wire
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Psychological
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported that he was conducting a low reconnaissance flight prior to helicopter aerial application operations; during the low reconnaissance, the helicopter came in contact with a power line which caught on the left skid. The pilot further reported that, while under tension, a section of the power line "snapped" into the main rotor system resulting in a loss of control. Subsequently, the pilot performed an emergency autorotation to a wheat field which resulted in a hard landing followed by main rotor contact with and consequent separation of the tail boom.
The fuselage and the tail boom were substantially damaged.
The pilot reported there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation.
As a safety recommendation, the pilot reported that a more thorough high reconnaissance flight prior to the low reconnaissance flight would have decreased the probability of this accident occurring.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain clearance from the power line during low reconnaissance flight, which resulted in a power line strike, loss of control, and a subsequent hard landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA16CA258
- Event ID
- 20160524X71954
- Case number
- GAA16CA258
- 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: 947503004a136de2a50a24747bd76f940536a2b9c5d25ebc446644c70aed1dba; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:25:51.500Z.