CEN16LA213 · Bell 47G 5
Hendrickson Flying Service Bell 47G 5 · Accident while maneuvering
From Laureles, TX to Laureles, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN16LA213
- 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 5
- 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
- N6203N
- Operator
- Hendrickson Flying Service
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Laureles, TXTo Laureles, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 47 years (built 1969)
- 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
- Maneuvering · low-altitude flying
- 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
- Miscellaneous/other
- 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
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The commercial pilot reported that, while conducting a spray pass, he pulled on the helicopter's collective, and the rotor speed dropped. He lowered the collective, applied maximum throttle, and pulled on the collective again, but the rotor speed continued to drop. He then attempted to land in a nearby yard, but the tailboom struck a tree, and the helicopter then flipped on its right side.
A witness, who was an experienced agricultural helicopter pilot, reported that he had flown with the accident pilot for about 12 hours in the accident helicopter, which was a piston engine-powered helicopter that did not have a throttle governor, to familiarize him with managing the throttle. He stated that the accident pilot's previous experience was in turbine-powered helicopters that had a throttle governor. The witness stated that he was in the field watching the accident pilot perform spraying operations. The pilot made a downwind pass in the field in a tight area. He said that, when the pilot pulled up to climb above the trees at the end of the pass, he heard the engine "bog down" and that he thought that the pilot had pulled the collective without adding throttle.
A postaccident examination of the helicopter and a test run of the engine revealed no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have prevented normal operation. Based on this evidence, it is likely that the pilot failed to apply engine power when he applied collective input, which resulted in a loss of rotor speed and an exceedance of the helicopter's performance capability.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to apply additional engine power when he applied collective input, which led to a loss of rotor speed and the exceedance of the helicopter’s performance capability.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN16LA213
- Event ID
- 20160610X14116
- Case number
- CEN16LA213
- 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: 400c69bfa8c39df20d94acb2e85fab9121db1cc3ae64ebcccf3e4c0c49c7343e; retrieved 2026-09-16T03:29:28.894Z.