ERA25LA380 · Bell Helicopter Corp UH-1D
Bell Helicopter Corp UH-1D · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA25LA380
- 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
Bell Helicopter Corp UH-1D
- Aircraft type
- Bell UH-1
- 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
- N849DB
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 55 years (built 1970)
- 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
- Approach
- 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
Two pilots were attempting to reposition the vintage, experimental-exhibition category helicopter into a hangar to protect it from hail damage before a severe cold front arrived. The pilots initially attempted to land the helicopter on a movable skid, but because the skid was too close to a building (given the wind conditions), the pilots landed the helicopter before one of the pilots disembarked and moved the skid. The accident pilot then took off in the helicopter and flew in a roughly circular pattern to approach the skid for landing. During the flight the helicopter “developed a severe shake,” so the pilot decided to immediately land the helicopter on the grass below. During the landing, the helicopter’s tail rotor struck the ground, substantially damaging it and its mount/drive system. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical malfunctions or failures of the helicopter that would have precluded normal operation. He further described that at the time of the accident the wind velocity was about 30 knots, and “I wish it had not been so windy, with the wind whipping around the building. If the skid had been in an area of clear air, it would have been fine.”
Probable cause
The pilot’s loss of helicopter control during landing approach in strong wind conditions, which resulted in tail rotor contact with the ground during landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA25LA380
- Event ID
- 20251023201916
- Case number
- ERA25LA380
- 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, cause areas. 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: a5da71b648517ab14c42b008d35d3fb890268f48a5f26457dc1721bf40964d9f; retrieved 2026-09-16T20:30:15.745Z.