ERA24LA244 · Ruth Hummingbird 300L
Ruth Hummingbird 300L · Accident: loss of control in flight while maneuvering
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA24LA244
- 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
- 0
- 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
Ruth Hummingbird 300L
- Aircraft type
- Ruth HUMMINGBIRD
- 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
- N331PF
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 3 years (built 2021)
- 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
- 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 oper/perf/capability
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
**This report was modified on 4/2/2026. Please see the docket for the original report.** During an evening test flight, the pilot was hovering the experimental amateur-built helicopter just above the ground to track the main rotor blades with light emitting diodes (LEDs) attached to the blade tips to address a main rotor vibration. He stated that he was distracted by the LED lights and lost control of the helicopter and that “there was nothing wrong with the aircraft.” The helicopter came to rest on its side and sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and empennage. Although the pilot reported no control issues with the helicopter, both the FAA inspector who examined it and the kit manufacturer reported deficiencies with the pilot’s build that would be expected to adversely affect its handling characteristics. According to the kit manufacturer, these included the installation of nonstandard flight control components (from a different helicopter make and model) and other modifications from the original design. However, the extent to which the pilot’s modifications contributed to the outcome could not be determined.
Probable cause
The pilot's failure to maintain control of the helicopter while hovering.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA24LA244
- Event ID
- 20240604194381
- Case number
- ERA24LA244
- 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: local date, investigation status, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2024-06-01.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8c31f1ccdeb5cbcf3ba7463c8a4489e9e73a2caa738e1331639c9e7125246a71; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:50:40.932Z.