GAA18CA034 · Airbus Helicopters EC 130 T2
Richardson Aviation Airbus Helicopters EC 130 T2 · Accident while maneuvering
From Riviera, TX to Riviera, TX
Event
- NTSB case
- GAA18CA034
- 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
Airbus Helicopters EC 130 T2
- Aircraft type
- Airbus EC-130
- 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
- N22TZ
- Operator
- Richardson Aviation
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riviera, TXTo Riviera, TX
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2014)
- 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 · 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
- 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
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
According to the pilot in the public helicopter, he was conducting a wildlife antipredation flight and maneuvering at a low altitude with two net gunners located on the left and right in the aft cabin. The pilot reported that he entered a left bank to pursue a deer. The deer was located "between our 8 and 9 o'clock position, and the net gunner made the net shot at the deer." The pilot observed the net miss the deer and simultaneously heard an unusual "whooshing noise" coming from the helicopter. He made a precautionary landing, and during the shutdown, he noticed what he described as an unusual discoloration of the main rotor disc.
Examination of the main rotor blades revealed that one of the blades had a large hole in it, about 5 ft from the blade tip. The net that was fired at the deer was recovered and was found to be missing one of the weights that are normally attached to the net's corners.
The helicopter sustained substantial damage to a main rotor blade.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable cause
The separation of a weight from the gunner’s net, which struck the helicopter’s main rotor blade during flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record GAA18CA034
- Event ID
- 20171031X55947
- Case number
- GAA18CA034
- 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: 534b8dd055b5dfefaecf1246e40da30c879b714bf6d26082e7ecd2d77409eec2; retrieved 2026-09-16T05:58:44.945Z.