CEN17LA188 · Bell 407
Bell Helicopter Textron Bell 407 · Accident: hard landing
From Bell Helicopter Hurst Heliport (0TE2) to Bell Training Facility Heliport (3XS7)
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN17LA188
- 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 407
- Aircraft type
- Bell 407
- 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
- N6040Y
- Operator
- Bell Helicopter Textron
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Bell Helicopter Hurst Heliport (0TE2), Hurst, TXTo Bell Training Facility Heliport (3XS7), Fort Worth, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 1999)
- 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
- Landing
- 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
- 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 › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The flight instructor was demonstrating the emergency procedure for a full-authority digital engine control (FADEC) failure that would cause it to switch from auto to manual mode as part of the helicopter manufacturer's training program. The instructor stated that the helicopter was in a stable 5-ft hover when he was demonstrating the maneuver. To begin the demonstration, the flight instructor intentionally switched the FADEC to the manual mode. After about 10 seconds, the engine speed began to increase, which resulted in a corresponding increase in the main rotor speed. The instructor increased the collective control input in an attempt to control the engine and rotor speeds. The helicopter subsequently climbed and began to shake violently. The instructor initiated a descent for landing with an excessive descent rate, which resulted in damage to the landing skids and tailboom upon touchdown.
The helicopter flight manual emergency procedure for a FADEC failure and the training program procedure for the FADEC manual mode demonstration both noted that the engine and rotor speeds must be maintained between 95% and 100% with the collective and throttle controls. The demonstration procedure also noted that the throttle control should be in the fly position when the FADEC is placed into manual mode. A review of engine data recovered from the FADEC indicated that the throttle was not in the fly position before beginning the demonstration, which likely resulted in a greater increase in engine and rotor speeds than would have been expected. The flight instructor did not promptly manage the increase in the engine and rotor speeds, which resulted in an inadvertent overspeed condition and subsequent airframe vibrations that prompted the need for an emergency landing.
Probable cause
The flight instructor's failure to prevent the engine/rotor overspeed condition during the demonstration maneuver and the excessive descent rate during the emergency landing, which resulted in a hard landing. Contributing to the engine/rotor overspeed condition was the flight instructor's failure to comply with the demonstration procedure.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN17LA188
- Event ID
- 20170518X61152
- Case number
- CEN17LA188
- 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, coordinates. 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: 94e677d665eed01c5a3cfd54eab8069a4944848ba76e277acd84932a0c1e3b8e; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:17:46.145Z.