ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 286570
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| Date: | Sunday 13 September 2009 |
| Time: | 13:30 LT |
| Type: | Safari Helicopter |
| Owner/operator: | |
| Registration: | N555BB |
| MSN: | BB2077 |
| Total airframe hrs: | 135 hours |
| Engine model: | Lycoming O-320-B2B |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Substantial |
| Category: | Accident |
| Location: | Cedar Park, Texas -
 United States of America
|
| Phase: | Unknown |
| Nature: | Private |
| Departure airport: | Cedar Park, TX (40XS) |
| Cedar Park, TX (40XS) | |
| Investigating agency: | NTSB |
| Confidence Rating: |  Accident investigation report completed and information captured |
The helicopter was approximately 400 feet above the ground on a normal straight-in landing to a paved runway. At an airspeed of 45 miles per hour the pilot heard a snap and the helicopter began to spin. The pilot entered an autorotation and said he was concentrating on just 'trying to keep the helicopter as flat as possibleâ€. The helicopter struck the trees in a nose-down attitude. There was no fuel spill and no postcrash fire. The helicopter was substantially damaged and the pilot, who was the only occupant, sustained minor injuries. The Texas State Trooper who responded said that the tail rotor gearbox was missing from the area of the main wreckage. By the next day residents in the area had found a single tail rotor blade and, several hundred feet away, they found the other tail rotor blade still attached to the tail rotor hub and tail rotor gearbox. Photographs of the separated tail rotor blade show that the skin had ripped away from all three blade grip bolt holes. A postcrash examination of the helicopter failed to reveal why the tail rotor blades and gearbox separated from the aircraft.
Probable Cause: An in-flight separation of the tail rotor blades and the tail rotor gearbox for undetermined reasons.
Accident investigation:
 |
|
Sources:
NTSB CEN09CA584
Location
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 03-Oct-2022 12:47 | ASN Update Bot | Added |
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