Helicopter Consultanats of Maui Eurocopter EC130 B4 accident
Eurocopter EC130 B4 · Accident: loss of control in flight during landing
From Hilo International Airport (PHTO) to Hilo International Airport (PHTO)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's location. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- ANC20LA028
- 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
- Charter & commuter
- 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
Eurocopter EC130 B4
- Aircraft type
- Eurocopter EC130
- 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
- N11QK
- Operator
- Helicopter Consultanats of Maui
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Hilo International Airport (PHTO), Hilo, HITo Hilo International Airport (PHTO), Hilo, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 18 years (built 2002)
- 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 135: Air Taxi & Commuter
- 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 · flare/touchdown
- 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
- Loss of control in flight
- 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 propeller/rotor
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot was conducting a precautionary landing following the onset of a significant, high frequency vibration. As the helicopter slowed, he raised the collective and applied right tail rotor pedal, but the nose of the helicopter veered to the left. The pilot eventually applied full right tail rotor pedal, but the nose of the helicopter continued to the left. About 200 feet above ground level, with the right tail rotor pedal fully depressed, the helicopter began to spin to the left. The pilot attempted to stop the spin to no avail and eventually closed the throttle and performed a hovering autorotation. He stated that the helicopter descended, touched down hard, and subsequently rolled onto its right side, sustaining substantial damage.
A postaccident examination revealed that one of the 10 tail rotor fenestron blades had been liberated at the blade root, at the level of the blade’s drain port; the blade root remained attached and installed to the fenestron hub. Visual examination of the nine remaining blades revealed three that had cracks aligned with the drain hole with features consistent with fatigue.
The investigation determined that the ruptured blade failure was a fatigue fracture that originated near the blade’s drain hole; however, the fracture surface’s origins were damaged, and the type of failure near the point of origin could not be determined. The water drain hole geometry and rib thickness were determined by the manufacturer to be the main factors in the development of the crack. Additional factors include blade loading stresses that were not anticipated during certification, and helicopter operations that involve sideslip maneuvers.
Probable cause
A loss of control due to the fatigue fracture of a tail rotor fenestron blade due to the geometry of the water drain hole positioning on the rib.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ANC20LA028
- Event ID
- 20200308X53043
- Case number
- ANC20LA028
- 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: 918d07fe8a51970f38d448648fc359c5814af306a48372c7d2bd7b4b951fb692; retrieved 2026-09-16T11:16:01.117Z.