ERA19CA147 · Gaskins SAFARI 400
Gaskins SAFARI 400 · Accident: dynamic rollover while maneuvering
From Music City Executive Airport (XNX) to Music City Executive Airport (XNX)
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA19CA147
- 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
Gaskins SAFARI 400
- Aircraft type
- Gaskins SAFARI 400
- 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
- N104CV
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Music City Executive Airport (XNX), Gallatin, TNTo Music City Executive Airport (XNX), Gallatin, TN
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2016)
- 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
- Dynamic rollover
- 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
- Environmental issues › Physical environment
- Personnel issues › Action/decision
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot, who was also the owner of the helicopter, stated that the helicopter was at or near its maximum allowable gross weight and required maximum engine power to hover in ground effect when he initiated the flight. After a short local flight, the pilot completed an approach to a parallel taxiway with the helicopter in ground effect. The pilot reported that, instead of terminating the approach to a hover, he performed a 180° pedal turn and initiated a teardrop-shaped turn to reverse course, which resulted in the loss of ground effect. As the helicopter turned right below the effective translational lift airspeed, the terrain sloped away from beneath the helicopter, and once in an out-of-ground effect, higher power-demand condition, the engine could not produce the necessary power to maintain full operating rpm. The helicopter then descended below the height of the taxiway. The pilot attempted to perform a landing on rough, sloping terrain, but the helicopter's right skid hit a mound of dirt, which resulted in a dynamic rollover, and it then came to rest on its side.
Probable cause
The pilot/owner's improper decision to make a right turn instead of terminating the approach to a hover and his subsequent loss of helicopter control while attempting to land on sloping terrain, which resulted in a roll-over.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA19CA147
- Event ID
- 20190411X81517
- Case number
- ERA19CA147
- 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: 711426b879ebc762a8f62503fc334b79533db72e7f9eda30402e5097f4eb8bc0; retrieved 2026-09-16T08:43:52.106Z.