CEN26LA191 · Vertical Aviation HUMMINGBIRD 300L
Amd Air Vertical Aviation HUMMINGBIRD 300L · Accident: system/component malfunction/failure (non-power) during takeoff
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN26LA191
- 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
- Ongoing
- 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
Vertical Aviation HUMMINGBIRD 300L
- Aircraft type
- Vertical 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
- N284ST
- Operator
- Amd Air
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 1 year (built 2025)
- 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
- Takeoff
- 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
- System/component malfunction/failure (non-power)
- 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
On May 16, 2026, about 0950 central daylight time, a Vertical Aviation Technologies 300L Hummingbird helicopter, N284ST, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Lee’s Summit, Missouri. One passenger sustained minor injuries. The pilot and second passenger were not injured. The helicopter was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight. The pilot reported that after completing his initial preflight actions, he departed from his home base in Milan, Missouri, for Trenton Municipal Airport (TRX) in Trenton, Missouri. After refueling at TRX, he then departed to Kansas City/Lee's Summit Regional Airport (LXT), Lee’s Summit, Missouri, to participate in an EAA Young Eagles flight. According to the pilot, the passengers were given a safety briefing after they were loaded into the helicopter. After the engine was started, the engine oil temperature was observed to be within the required range to engage the rotor systems, and the pilot initiated a low hover. The pilot stated that after he turned about 90° to the right and flew south about 15 ft above ground level, the helicopter yawed to the left and fell to the ground. The helicopter impacted sloped terrain and came to rest on its right side, which resulted in substantial damage to its vertical and horizontal stabilizers. Video footage of the accident depicted the helicopter entering translational flight and turning to the right. After about 5 seconds, the helicopter climbed about 15 ft above ground level (AGL). A sudden increase of engine RPM can be heard, followed immediately by a loss of control, during which the helicopter rotated counterclockwise and impacted the terrain. The wreckage was retained for further investigation.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN26LA191
- Event ID
- 20260518203011
- Case number
- CEN26LA191
- 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: ceb7a9024bcafdf68dd4ed22d65e755490ecc0fb9ddcbeaa1b0f062eb39e75cd; retrieved 2026-09-16T21:30:41.651Z.